Egypt hasn’t learned from Mubarak’s failure

An excerpted editorial from The Washington Post

More than any other Arab ruler of his generation, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who died on Tuesday, had the opportunity to liberalize and modernize his country. His refusal to do so was one of the triggers of the 2011 Arab revolution and a principal cause of the oppression that afflicts Egypt today.

Mubarak was a gray and charmless former air force general when he was catapulted into Egypt’s presidency by the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. In the 29 years of rule that followed, his abiding characteristic was a deep reluctance to change much about himself or his country.

Mubarak made a belated and halting effort at economic reform beginning in the 1990s, and a modest boom followed. But progress was hamstrung by cronyism and corruption.

In politics, Mubarak’s appetite for change was even more attenuated. In the last years of his rule, he tolerated a freer press and refrained from censoring the internet — which allowed tens of thousands of young people to organize against him. But elections were invariably rigged and peaceful democratic opponents persecuted, tortured and imprisoned.

Mubarak reserved his toughest measures not for the banned Muslim Brotherhood — which was allowed to place scores of its members in parliament — but for secular pro-Western democrats.

Like dictators elsewhere, Mubarak groomed his son to succeed him. The prospect of the callow and unpopular Gamal Mubarak as leader helped drive Egyptians into the streets behind liberal revolutionaries in January 2011 — and critically weakened Mubarak’s support among the generals who ultimately removed him.

But the subsequent transition to democracy foundered on the clash between the two intolerant political forces Mubarak had fostered, the military and the Islamists. Since a July 2013 coup by then-Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt has sunk into a still more repressive regime, marked by thousands of extrajudicial killings and tens of thousands of political prisoners.

Egypt’s new strongman has learned the lessons of Mubarak’s failure. The Arab world’s most populous nation continues to lag behind other developing nations. Egyptians who advocate liberal reforms or even free speech are still relentlessly persecuted. Sadly, the repressive, stagnant regime that Mubarak created has become Egypt’s standard.