40 Middle East & Africa The EconomistFebruary 29th 2020
2 president,GamalAbdel Nasser, sank the
country in a ruinous effort to bolster the re-
publican side in Yemen’s civil war. The dis-
traction left Egypt ill-prepared for the six-
day war of 1967, when Israeli raids de-
stroyed most of its aircraft on the tarmac.
Mr Mubarak’s new job was to rebuild
that shattered force. His grim determina-
tion, which bore fruit in a respectable
showing during the October war of 1973,
when Egypt seized back lost territory, won
him notice from above.
As president he held rigidly to his pre-
decessor’s course, maintaining peace with
Israel and close ties to America, while
slowly winning back the favour with fellow
Arabs that Sadat had lost by consorting
with the “Zionist enemy”. This brought re-
wards in foreign aid, but Mr Mubarak’s risk-
aversion in domestic politics carried a
heavy cost. The economy stalled and
schools and courts floundered as the popu-
lation surged. His lack of imagination was
reflected in bureaucratic inertia, com-
pounded by unrestrained security agencies
and an ever-expanding network of ex-army
men rewarded with provincial governor-
ships, board memberships and the like.
Talent slowly drained from Egypt’s govern-
ment as Mr Mubarak rewarded loyalty over
competence. His principal officials were
grey, uninspiring figures.
A brief period of political liberalisation
in the 1980s, which allowed Islamist
groups to surface, was followed by a brutal
clampdown. The screws turned even
tighter after Mr Mubarak narrowly escaped
assassination (one of several attempts) in- His intelligence chief, Omar Sulei-
man, had suggested that he have his own
car flown to a summit in the Ethiopian cap-
ital, Addis Ababa. Jihadists ambushed the
convoy on the road from the airport. The
bulletproof vehicle saved Mr Mubarak’s
life. In subsequent years his police impris-
oned as many as 30,000 suspected jiha-
dists, while he posed to the West as a bul-
wark against the fundamentalist menace.
In person he was vigorous, priding him-
self on his average but enthusiastic
squash-playing. He led a no-drinking, no-
smoking life, but it was far from plain, with
several rococo palaces and a fortune salted
away abroad. His jet-black hair was main-
tained with dye, and the stripes on his suits
were stitched, by London tailors, with the
tiny repeated letters of his own name. He
was good-humoured in a brusque sort of
way, but the bonhomie fell flat in public.
When Queen Elizabeth invited Mr Mubarak
for a state visit, his gift to her was a mach-
ine-made carpet with a computer-generat-
ed design showing the faces of Prince
Charles and Princess Diana.
After the revolution Mr Mubarak spent
years on trial for murder and corruption.
He was convicted and sentenced to life in
prison, but the ruling was overturned on
appeal. Then, in 2013, came the coup that
ended Egypt’s brief democratic experi-
ment, along with efforts to hold Mr Muba-
rak accountable. Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the
general who seized power, grew paranoid
about challenges to his rule—among them,
unlikely as it may seem, nostalgia for Mr
Mubarak. Better he simply be forgotten.
After decades in the public eye Mr Mubarak
lived out his final days in quiet seclusion.
In a pair of rare interviews last year he
reminisced about his days as a soldier and
statesman. He spoke far less about his
presidency. Whatever his thoughts, Mr
Mubarak, his black hair long since faded to
grey, offered no public reflection on the
failures that caused millions of his coun-
trymen to turn on him. Did he blame his
sons, whose greed and ambition alienated
not only his people but, crucially, his fel-
low officers? Did he blame his glib intelli-
gence men, or the ever-plotting Muslim
Brothers, or his gutless American allies?
The stolid soldier gave nothing away. 7The fallen autocratT
wo daysbefore he outlined South Afri-
ca’s budget, Tito Mboweni shared a
Photoshopped picture of himself in a
spacesuit. The caption read: “man on a
mission”. It was characteristic skylarking
by the finance minister, an ebullient re-
former who spends much of his time warn-
ing colleagues in the ruling African Nation-
al Congress (anc) that unless the economy
is overhauled the country faces ruin.
On February 26th political gravity
brought Mr Mboweni down to earth. His
budget was billed as the most important
since the end of apartheid in 1994. South
Africa’s public finances are in a sorry state,
a result of sluggish growth and lavish state
spending, especially on public-sector
wages. Debt was just 27% of gdp in 2008. A
decade later it was 57%, and is set to rise to
66% over the next year, warned the finance
minister. But it is unlikely that his com-
rades were paying attention.
Mr Mboweni announced some sensible
policies aimed at speeding growth, such as
making it easier to start a business and giv-
ing more power to cartel-busters. He also
set aside more money for the public prose-
cutor to go after corrupt officials.
Then there was Eskom, a state-owned
electricity utility that epitomises South Af-
rica’s struggles. Decades of mismanage-
ment, outright theft, and contracts and
jobs for pals have left it broke and unable to
keep the lights on. About a third of its ca-
pacity is out of action because of break-
downs. Rolling blackouts that regularly
shut factories, shops and mines are push-
ing the economy towards recession. Mr
Mboweni promised to make it easier forin-
dependent firms to sell power into the na-JOHANNESBURG
A reformist finance minister bumps up
against political realitySouth Africa’s budgetComrade
cosmonaut
No lack of interest
South Africa, debt-service costs
As % of main budget revenueSource:NationalTreasuryFORECAST20151050
23222120
Fiscal years ending March 31st191820171