Darwish was appointed in the cabinet of Ahmed Nazif in 2004 as a minister of state for administrative development tasked with developing the government's electronic services and institutionalizing governance policies. During his tenure as a Minister of State for Administrative Development, he was awarded the 2007 Middle East Eminent Persons from Singapore. The entire Nazif Cabinet resigned with the orders of then-president Hosni Mubarak as part of the political concessions done during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.