Mubarak on trial

Former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was wheeled into court on Wednesday in a hospital bed (his lawyers claim he is very ill), and put into the same kind of iron cage that so many of his opponents were tried in before they were jailed or hanged. The charges are corruption and ordering the killing of protesters during the Egyptian revolution last February.

If convicted of the latter charge, he could face the death sentence, but he is unlikely ever to dangle at the end of a rope. Some 850 Egyptian protesters were killed during the revolution, but the kill orders were probably never written down, and it will be very hard to prove Mubarak's personal responsibility for the killings.

No matter. He is 83 years old and in poor health, so even a few years in prison would be effectively a death sentence. This trial is not about the fate of a few wicked men. (Mubarak's sons and seven close associates are also on trial). It's about a new Egypt where the law must be obeyed even by the powerful.

It's the fact that the trial is taking place that matters, not the severity of the punishment. But given that the soldiers are still in charge, most Egyptians are still stunned to see it actually happening.

It was the Egyptian military who intervened on February 11 to force Mubarak to resign from power and end the killing. Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi heads the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that serves as an interim government pending free elections in Egypt. But the Egyptian army has never been a hotbed of democracy.

MILITARY INTEREST

Most Egyptians, therefore, never expected to see Mubarak on trial in open court, but the military have their own interests to defend. During 57 years of thinly disguised military rule they have built up an enormously lucrative presence in housing complexes, banking, and all sorts of other non-military activities. They also get a huge share of the country's budget.

The country's senior officers realise that they have to make a deal with at least some of the civilian political forces in post-Mubarak Egypt if they want to keep their privileges. Putting Mubarak on trial is a down-payment on that deal - but who are their prospective civilian partners? A lot of the young people who actually made the revolution happen suspect that it is the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood was slow to come out in support of the revolution, for it had an unwritten deal with Mubarak that allowed it to operate as a sort of unofficial opposition (as long as it didn't challenge his rule). It has put down deep roots in the poorer sections of Egyptian society, thanks to the very effective social services it provides. Its leaders are middle-aged and elderly men of a conservative disposition.

The young men and women who actually brought Mubarak down, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly secular in their views. They want a free press and real respect for human rights. So which group would the military prefer to deal with?

CUTTING a deal

If there were an election in Egypt today, the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's new political front, would probably win more votes than any other party. We'll know by next month, because there is actually going to be an election in Egypt in September.

Behind crowd-pleasing gestures like Mubarak's trial, the military may have already cut a deal with the Brotherhood: the latter will dominate the new parliament, and in return they will leave the military's privileged position alone.

So is the Egyptian revolution going to be betrayed? In part it will be, at least for a while; all revolutions are. But this is a long game, and a wise player might prefer not to take power in Egypt right now. The economy is a wreck, popular expectations are extremely high, and there will be severe disillusionment when the new, democratically elected government fails to work miracles.

It might be better to aim to win the election four years from now, when today's victors have become tomorrow's villains. Whether that's a good strategy or not, it's probably the only viable option for the secular parties.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.