Sawiris: Egypt’s current conditions remind me of days before 25 January revolution

“The way issues are being run in Egypt today reminds me with the atmosphere before the 25 of January revolution,” the country’s business tycoon and founder of the Free Egyptians Party Naguib Sawiris, told ONTV.

“There has been interference in media and issues related to the electoral process, as well as arrests of many youth [activists],” Sawiris, who supported the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, told ONTV anchor Youssef El-Husseini on Monday.

Sawiris said that “those kinds of policies make the regime lose friends especially that President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi is popular enough and there is no need for such measures to secure his rule.”

The Mubarak years were charcterised by political repression of opponents, widespread rigging of elections and security agencies’ interfernce in political life.

The Free Egyptians Party, which was co-founded by Sawiris in 2011 after the uprising against Mubarak, won 65 seats in the recent parliamentary elections, giving it the largest share of seats by a political party in the legislature.

The liberal party refused to join the parliamentary bloc “In Support of Egypt”, which is led by the former inteligence Sameh Seif El-Yazal and announced repeatedly it would solidly support the policies of El-Sisi.

” For the Love – the precursor of In Support of Egypt – would kill the democratic process in Egypt,” Sawiris told private newspaper Youm 7 last month, describing the members of the formation as “sheep being led by a Supreme Guide just like the Muslim Brotherhood.”

He reiterated on Monday to El-Husseini that his party “would not join the bloc in order not to be [controlled] by any power in the parliament.”

source: Ahram online