Country's economy in shambles

CAIRO (AP):

Drivers passing Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo curse the protesters.

On radio shows, callers question whether the youth activists and others involved in the new wave of demonstrations over the past week are nationalists, selfish children or saboteurs.

Political differences aside, what has become clear is that the latest clamour against Egypt's military rulers is pummeling the country's already flailing economy at a crucial time when many hoped winter tourism would pick up. A financial crisis is looming, say analysts.

"We're not far off," said Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist with Capital Economics. "There's enough money left in the coffers to get through the year, but not much beyond that. Crunch time is two to three months away."

It took 30 years to engineer the revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak in February. But it only took months to push the seven per cent annual growth rate of recent years to an anemic forecast of only about 1 per cent this year.

Mounting problems

The difficulties keep mounting. The stock market tanks daily and foreign reserves have fallen by almost 40 per cent so far this year.

The drop is linked to the protests that have persisted since Mubarak's fall, and more specifically, the wide gap between the expectations of the population after the uprising and the reality of what the government could deliver.

From iconic Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the revolution, to the city's middle-income neighbourhoods and slums, the sobering realisation that the hopes for democracy have not translated into a better standard of living is leaving Egyptians increasingly frustrated - with the military rulers, with the interim government that resigned a few days ago and, perhaps more troublingly, with each other.