CAIRO - Street charity tables, locally known as mawaaid el-rahman, used to secure Safwat Abdel-Karim, a shop assistant in northern Cairo, a free meal to break his dawn-to-dusk fast in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “I used to take a seat at a free banquet hosted by a senior member of the National Democratic Party,” he says, referring to the now-defunct party of former president Hosni Mubarak. “To be honest, the man spent lavishly, offering his guests a delicious cooked dinner and dessert.” This year's Ramadan is different for Abdel-Karim, who cannot make it home in time for iftar (the fast-breaking meal). “I have to work until 10pm six days per week in Ramadan. Now that this politician has stopped hosting this banquet, I have to buy my own food for my iftar,” he adds on a sad note. Mawaaid el-rahman meals are a salient feature in Ramadan in Egypt. In the past few years, senior politicians in Mubarak's party had developed the tradition of endearing themselves to ordinary people by providing free meals for the poor or those who couldn't get home by iftar time. An Egyptian court dissolved the once-mammoth party a few months after Mubarak was swept aside in a popular revolt in February. Mubarak himself is being prosecuted on charges of ordering the killing of protesters and power abuse, while several senior officials of the party are languishing in a prison in southern Cairo, accused of political and financial corruption. Some of them were among the big-name hosts of the mawaaid el-rahman banquets. Likewise, they used to distribute Ramadan bags, containing foodstuffs, to the poor in the run-up to Ramadan. Now that they have been detained and their regime has collapsed, these politicians and business tycoons have discontinued their ‘benevolence', much to the chagrin of Abdel-Karim. “I know they were fake benefactors,” he says. “But who cares? I have nothing to do with politics. All I am interested in is not having to exhaust my humble budget with extra spending on the iftar meal.” Around 40 per cent of Egypt's 80 million citizens are believed to be living below the poverty line. Economic woes, due to a string of recent labour strikes and insecurity, have added to the ordeal of Egyptians living on limited incomes. Days ahead of Ramadan, the Army distributed free food boxes to poor families in several parts of Egypt. But people like Abdel-Karim complain that they had no access to these boxes. ”They say that the corruption of the former regime has been stopped. So where is the money that used to be embezzled and wasted?” he asks. “The new leaders of this country and its politicians should show they really care about its poor. “The other day, I read in a newspaper that the cost of the Muslim Brotherhood's annual iftar banquet held at a top hotel in Cairo hit LE1 million,” he adds, referring to Egypt's influential Islamist group. “They invited almost everyone from the Government, as well as the opposition and diplomats. Unfortunately, they forgot the poor.”
