January 24 at Davos One Year Ago

January 24, 2013

December 24, 2013

One year ago the then Prime Minister of Egypt, Dr. Hisham Qandil joined the conversation at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Just a month ago the BBC and Al Arabiya reported on his arrest. How the tide may turn...

     BBC. December 24, 2013
"The interior ministry said Hisham Qandil was caught in a mountainous area with smugglers trying to flee to Sudan. Mr Qandil was sentenced to a year in prison while in office for not carrying out a court ruling to renationalise a company that was privatised in 1996. A Cairo appeals court upheld the sentence in September, two months after the military overthrew Mr Morsi.

Mr Qandil represented an alliance of pro-Morsi Islamist groups
in meetings with European Union mediators, who tried to persuade the  military-installed interim government to launch a fully inclusive transition process that included the Muslim Brotherhood. However, he kept a low profile after the authorities launched a fierce crackdown on the Brotherhood in August, in which hundreds of people have been killed and thousands detained.

Mr Qandil, who became Egypt's youngest prime minister since 1954 in August  2012, is not a member of the Brotherhood or any other Islamist political organisation, but is said to be religious."

Dr. Hisham was a former fine colleague of me at the Drainage Research Institute in Cairo where I was working at an Egyptian-Dutch project. When appointed PM in Egypt I had high expectations of him to be the moderating force under Muslim Brotherhood rule, being an intellectual bureaucrat who had been working with the African Development Bank office in Tunisia.

Many of his 'friends' in Davos probably applauded him for not renationalising a company that was privatised in 1996. Where are they now apart from referencing his presence today at a talk about "Fulfilling North-Africa's Promise"? Have they all forgotten about him? One may appreciate Dr. Hisham for taking a position and helding firm to it going against the flow. One may also appreciate his attempt to arrive at an inclusive transition process in Egypt, trying to prevent the violence that was undoubtedly to follow. I hope he will receive a fair trial and the love for his country, the people of Egypt and his God will be seen.