Cairo: Threading his way amid Cairo’s legendary traffic chaos, Mohammad Sediq, a taxi driver, is nostalgic about Hosni Mubarak whose toppling more than two years ago he often lauded.
“At least in his days, we had food and security,” says Sadiq, a father of five. “Now we have neither.”
Egypt’s economy is in a tailspin as the country has been gripped by security breakdown since a popular revolt forced Mubarak to step down after nearly 30 years in power.
His overthrow heralded the political ascendancy of the long-oppressed Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood who is now in power.
“Mubarak was a good man. The problem was his wife who wanted Jamal [their younger son] to be president,” adds Sadiq.
Mubarak, 84, is to appear Saturday for a retrial on charges of failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising against him. His two sons Alaa and Jamal are to stand the same trial facing corruption charges.
In January, the Court of Cassation granted Mubarak’s appeal and revoked a life sentence given to him on complicity in protester deaths. The same court also ordered a retrial for his two sons who had been earlier acquitted of corruption.
Mubarak is staying at a military hospital in southern Cairo receiving medical treatment for unspecified diseases. His sons are, meanwhile, kept in police custody pending trial in other corruption cases.
Days before the start of the retrial, Public Prosecutor Talaat Abdullah ordered Mubarak detained for a further 15 days pending investigations into alleged wasting public money. The measure came to quash rumours that the former president will be released after having already spent the maximum detention period allowed under Egyptian law.
State-run newspaper Al Ahram last week reported that people in the Suez Canal city of Esmailia pasted pictures of Mubarak on their cars with words of praise.
“The worst result of the Brotherhood rule is that it has prompted some of us to miss the days of corruption under Mubarak,” said columnist Tareq Al Shenawi.
“The deeds of [the current president Mohammad] Mursi and his clan have played a major role in improving Mubarak’s image from a corrupt ruler to a hero who quit power in order to spare his people civil war,” Al Shenawi wrote in the opposition newspaper Al Tahrir.
Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, is locked in a high-profile dispute with the secular-leaning opposition who accuses him of acting at the command of his Muslim Brotherhood group. His critics also accuse him of upstaging Mubarak in oppressing dissenters and the media.
Adding to Mursi’s woes is slide in foreign reserves due to a sharp drop in tourist arrivals and an exodus of investors.
The country’s foreign holdings plummeted last month to $13.4 billion from $36 billion in the last days of Mubarak’s trial, according to official figures. The cash crunch has made it increasingly difficult for the government to import enough fuel to meet local needs.
“I spend long hours at petrol stations to refill my car,” says Sediq, the taxi driver. “This rarely happened in the days of Mubarak. Moreover, customers do not pay generously as before. Everyone is worried about tomorrow.”
When Mubarak appeared lying on a hospital bed in the dock on August 3, 2011, millions of people inside Egypt and beyond sat glued to TV screens to follow up what came to be known as the “trial of the century”. Mubarak was the first ruler in Egypt’s history to be prosecuted.
But Sediq is not interested in watching the new trial, which state television said would broadcast live. “I have to roam streets to earn a few pounds to support my family in these difficult days,” he says. “Besides, the reality is worse than Mubarak left it.”
Mursi, who took office in July, has repeatedly blamed the country’s upheaval on what he called “conspiracies” of Mubarak loyalists and corruption of the former regime.
“The corruption legacy is heavy... but I won’t rest until whole Egypt is purged of corruption,” Mursi tweeted last week.
