Egyptian Leftist Bloc Leader Calls Morsi 'New Mubarak'

Hamdeen Sabahi, chairman of Egypt's leftist Popular Current and former presidential candidate, speaks to Al-Monitor's Mohannad Sabry at his Cairo headquarters on Sunday, March 10, 2013. (photo by Mohannad Sabry)

CAIRO — Hamdeen Sabahi, Egypt’s former presidential candidate and head of powerful leftist block the Popular Current, described the country’s first democratically elected president — Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s bearded academic who was endorsed by leftists, democrats, liberals and revolutionary youth who opposed the return of Mubarak’s Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafiq as president — as a "new Mubarak."

The grey-haired opposition figure who garnered 4.8 million votes — or 20.7% of the turnout — in the first phase of Egypt's presidential elections (held in June 2012) blamed Morsi for the bloodiest wave of events in the country since the deadly confrontations of the 18-day uprising in January 2011 that ended the three-decades-long dictatorship of the now-jailed Hosni Mubarak.

Talking to Al-Monitor in his Cairo headquarters, Sabahi listed a number of reasons why he holds Morsi responsible.

Sabahi explained: "He was elected to fulfill the demands of a revolution and proved incapable of doing so, was elected to be president of all Egyptians and proved to represent only one group, was elected to embody the unity of Egyptians in Tahrir Square and is now leading a policy that significantly divides the people, was elected to end a reign of oppression but more than one hundred people were killed under his regime and hundreds were injured. We are back to the time of torture in jails and police stations, imprisonment of political activists and violations against the basic rights of Egyptians."

Sabahi fiercely criticized Morsi amid ongoing chaos that kicked off on Jan. 26, 2013, in the city of Port Said after 21 defendants accused of killing more than 70 people in the city’s soccer stadium on the night of Feb. 1, 2012, were sentenced to death.

The violence crept to other cities of the Suez Canal, the Nile Delta... To Continue Reading The Full Article Press More


Mohannad Sabry is an Egyptian journalist based in Cairo. He has written for McClatchy Newspapers and The Washington Times, served as managing editor of Global Post's reporting fellowship "Covering the Revolution" in Cairo as well as a contributor to its special reports "Tahrir Square" and "Egypt: the military, the people." Sabry was nominated to the 2011 Livingston Award for International Reporting. Born in Saudi Arabia and raised around the world, Sabry returned to Cairo in 2001 and has been covering Egypt since 2005. Follow him on twitter @mmsabry