So Hosni Mubarak has left. The army has taken over for an interim period in a run-up to elections.
It looks like a great outcome. Sure, many observers feel nervous about an army-controlled transition to democracy. The reality is that despots don’t have an opposition side of parliament and so when their time is up there is a power vacuum. By necessity this vacuum is frequently plugged by the military.
Like many third world countries Egypt is defined not by the number of poor people but by the inequality of wealth. Unlike many third world countries, Egypt has a significant and powerful middle class. This middle class has grown rapidly over the last twenty years and its young adults are cyber-smart. Networking sites allowed a fair degree of organisation of the crowds that filled Tahrir Square for 19 days until the inevitable came to pass.
The army has had a long period of economic growth through the Mubarak period. Like a corporation, it has acquired companies, land and capital. So in many ways, it is a self-financing, highly profitable and often operates above (or around) the law. Then there are huge top-ups from USA under military treaties.
So it will be interesting for Egypt-watchers to follow the money in three aspects.
Firstly, can the army be weaned off these rivers of money and toys to become an army that serves an elected government?
Secondly, the middle class will be expecting the dawn of liberalism, freedom of speech and transparency.
Thirdly, Mubarak has run off with the kitchen sink worth approximately $70 billion now sitting in foreign accounts. The new modernising Egypt could do with that.
Oliver Tambo, president of the ANC in exile, once said “getting rid of Apartheid will be the easy part”. This might be a sobering thought for a country sitting at the other end of the continent.