CAIRO - Egyptians are divided over whether ex-President Mubarak and his family, now living in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, as well as officials from his National Democratic Party (NDP), ought to be punished. Those who want Mubarak to be punished argue that hundreds of cases of corruption erupted in his three decades in power and businessmen helped him rule, not out of loyalty to their country, but for their own, self-serving interests. “It is strange to see Mubarak and his senior advisers, who deliberately corrupted Egypt for 30 years, hunkered down in Sharm el-Sheikh. He is given daily reports about what is going on,” says Hamdi Qandeel, a senior activist in the National Association for Change, a pro-democracy group. “Look at all the security surrounding Mubarak. Sharm is now like an independent state, from where he keeps in touch with foreign powers. This is not in the spirit of the revolution.” But the Egyptian military, who is in control of the country since Mubarak stepped down on February 11, denies this. Some people want Mubarak to stand trial, while others want the NDP dissolved and its members tried, because they were deeply involved in corruption for 30 years. In fact, Ahmed Ezz, the former secretary of the NDP's Organisational Affairs Committee, is already on trial, along with some ex-ministers, suspected of squandering public money and illegally acquiring licences for two steel factories. “It's not nice to see NDP members living freely without restrictions and going round their daily business as usual,” says Osama el-Ghazali, the Chairman of the opposition Democratic Front Party. “It would be better if Mubarak and his family left Egypt. This could happen via negotiations with the Armed Forces and popular pressure.” “Mubarak's era has ended and no way will it come back,” professor of political science Mustafa Kamel told the independent daily Al-Shorouq. “If he or any of his minions appeared on the scene again, there'd be another revolution. But the Armed Forces won't let us down.”
