Mubarak’s legacy

In 2003, then-president Hosni Mubarak collapsed while delivering a televised address before the Egyptian parliament. The 75-year-old was revived shortly afterwards and managed to complete the speech to rapturous applause. Later, Egyptians would joke that, as doctors feared he may not survive, they asked Mubarak if he would like to offer some farewell words to the Egyptian people. "Why? Where are they going?" he replied.

Another joke has it that during a visit to the Giza Zoo, Mubarak was shown a tortoise thought to be one of the oldest animals on earth. When told the tortoise could live up to 250 years, Mubarak simply remarked, "We'll see."

As he approached the end of his 30 years in power, perhaps the one thing Mubarak aimed to impress upon the people of Egypt above all else was his inevitability. He had beaten the odds and survived longer than his three predecessors combined.

He inherited a country of 45 million people and saw that population double over the 30 years of his rule. In that time, he managed to dismantle the social welfare programmes established under Gamal Abdel Nasser and reverse the relative political openness of Anwar el-Sadat's years.

Today, under the iron fist rule of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, that Egypt is one of widespread poverty and mass repression. This week, as Egyptians ranging from liberal politician Mohamed ElBaradei to former Salafi jihadist Nagih Ibrahim took to their social media accounts to mourn the death of Mubarak, it is worth recalling that the recent bouts of nostalgia for that era appear oblivious to the fact that Egypt's current tragedy is Mubarak's lasting legacy.

Following el-Sadat's assassination in 1981, Mubarak announced his presidency by declaring an emergency law that suspended many basic rights. Initially assumed to be a temporary measure, the emergency law was never lifted and the resulting human rights abuses – arbitrary arrests, military trials, torture – became permanent fixtures of the Egyptian state.

Meanwhile, over time, the space for political contestation became increasingly limited to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Little more than a rubber stamp, the NDP oversaw Mubarak's dismantling of the state's welfare obligations towards citizens, and ushered in the privatisation and crony capitalism that became the regime's most prominent feature in later years.

Known in Western capitals as a "moderate Arab leader", Mubarak became heavily reliant on the $2bn in annual aid that the United States dutifully paid to ensure Egypt would protect US regional interests, chiefly Israel's security amid its ongoing occupation and settlement of Palestinian land.

The 1991 US-led war to reverse Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait proved to be a turning point for Mubarak. As a reward for the country's participation in the campaign, $20bn in outstanding national debts were wiped clean, allowing Egypt to aggressively solicit new loans and foreign investments.

Excerpted from: 'Hosni Mubarak's legacy is Abdel Fattah el-Sisi'.

AlJazeera.com