Putting Hosni Mubarak on trial means putting tyranny on trial. The objective is to humble the tyrant but at the same time it has to be proved that the mills of justice grind slowly according to the due process of law. For 30 years former President Hosni Mubarak tyrannised over Egypt. He is now accused of, among other things, complicity in the killing of about 850 protestors at Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Demonstrations were held there earlier this year which led to Mubarak’s ouster in February. It is not surprising that the octogenarian Mubarak is pleading illness. Millions of Eyptians watched the trial on television. They must have been amazed at seeing the former dictator caged and put in the dock. But one has to see in the event more than theatricals. Egypt is in a state of political metamorphosis. Real elections may be held soon to usher in genuine democracy. Egypt is different from Tunisia where Zine al-Abidin Ben Ali had to be tried in absentia. It is also different from Libya which is rocked by a civil war that has intensified with NATO intervention. Nor can Egypt be compared with Yemen where President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been offered immunity on grounds of ill health. Is the Eyptian polity drifting towards limbo? A military government put in place can carry on the trial. The whole world, especially the Arab world is all agog with anticipation, Syria and Bahrein in particular. Meanwhile, one hopes Egypt is trying to reconstruct.
The method of holding the trial is significant. So is the promise of democratic elections which those who thronged Tahrir square and millions of other Egyptians are looking forward to. But democratic elections call for the strengthening of the country’s political institutions. If the trial brings in the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalist elements, democratic aspirations gaining ground will be totally smothered.