End of an era

Former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak has died at the age of 91. He was Egypt’s longest-serving president and ruled at the tail-end of the country’s 59-year stretch of military rule following the coup which overthrew King Farouk. But unlike the coup of 1952, led by future president Lt Col Gamal Abdel Nasser, with Gen Mohamed Naguib as the ‘face’ of revolution, or even Anwar Saadat, Mubarak was never seen as a leader with a vision for Egypt. Instead, he became notorious for running a brutal kleptocracy which led to the crash of Egypt’s once-rising star and made it an atypical third-world state — wholly dependent on the US, Saudi Arabia, and other benefactors to keep the taps running for the poor, while the ruling class accumulated unimaginable wealth. Even his credentials as a “military leader and war hero” had repeatedly been brought into question by others who served in the air force with him.

Indeed, if not for the fact that the short-lived democratic experiment that followed his ouster was itself killed off by a coup led by current President Abdel Fatah al Sisi, Mubarak may well have still been behind bars when he died. He was jailed for years after the Arab Spring uprising but was freed in 2017, after being acquitted of most charges. The acquittal stunned many Egyptians, thousands of whom poured into central Cairo to show their anger against the court. The only charge which stood was relating to financial corruption, and even that — using state funds to upgrade private residences — was much smaller than the billions his family and cronies were accused of siphoning off from state coffers. To millions of Egyptians, Mubarak was not a successor to those that deposed the king, but a latter-day pharaoh. Under the incumbent regime, most Mubarak cronies have had charges against them withdrawn, and some believe the old regime is already well and truly back. Indeed, Mubarak’s greatest legacy may be proving that dictatorial regimes can actually outlive the strongman. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2020.

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