Egyptians Open Door to Mubarak's Allies

'Remnants' of Former Regime Are Positioned for a Comeback to Fill Political Vacuum

A supporter of the military coup that deposed Mohammed Morsi wears a sign depicting army leader Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in Cairo on Friday. European Pressphoto Agency

CAIRO—As pro-democracy activists in Egypt turned against their elected president in recent weeks, they were also warming up to some very different politicians: former officials from the regime of Hosni Mubarak, the autocrat they forced from power more than two years ago.

The declining popularity of now-deposed President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood has allowed former members of Mr. Mubarak's dissolved National Democratic Party to stage a tenuous comeback in Egyptian public opinion.

With no clear leaders emerging and presidential and parliamentary elections somewhere down the road, former members of Mr. Mubarak's regime—known as "feloul," or "remnants," many of them once hunted by police and stigmatized by activists—are positioned for political resurrection.

"During the last two years, the definition of the feloul has changed," said Mohammed Abul Ghar, the head of Egypt's secular-leaning Social Democratic Party and a leader in the National Salvation Front, the leading opposition group to Mr. Morsi. "People now consider only very senior people in the Mubarak regime with known corruption as feloul."

﻿ The feloul figure who holds the most political currency is Ahmed Shafiq, Mr. Mubarak's last pick as prime minister and the candidate who lost narrowly to Mr. Morsi in a runoff presidential election last summer.

A number of Egyptian activists backed Mr. Morsi at the time with the purpose of preventing Mr. Shafiq from reaching the presidency. Disappointed by Mr. Morsi, the activists are now slowly embracing Mr. Shafiq's supporters.

The choices are limited. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the National Salvation Front and an opponent of Messrs. Mubarak and Morsi's regimes, has lately re-emerged as one of the most popular non-feloul, non-Islamist Egyptian leaders. But he prefers to remain a political "éminence grise" and act behind the scenes rather than run for office, he told CNN in an interview aired on Thursday.

Mr. Shafiq, who lives in Abu Dhabi, has been silent since the anti-Morsi protests on Sunday that sparked a military coup. He is biding his time before launching himself back into Egyptian politics, said his former campaign manager, Ahmed Sarhan.

Despite massing 48.7% of the votes when he confronted Mr. Morsi, Mr. Shafiq still carries the stigma of holding power under an autocratic regime.

A video of Mr. Shafiq signing a petition demanding that Mr. Morsi resign gave ammunition to Mr. Morsi's supporters, who accused the opposition of leading a putsch by the old regime.

Mr. Shafiq has since kept a low profile, but Mr. Sarhan said he believed the video lent more support to the anti-Morsi cause.

"It was clear that his signature drove a lot of Egyptians to sign that," said Mr. Sarhan. "With his endorsement, he gave a lot of momentum to Tamarod," the group behind the petition.

Tamarod's organizers said they gathered 22 million signatures. Though that claim is impossible to verify, the organizers were also behind the protests on June 30, the anniversary of Mr. Morsi's presidency, that helped to drive the leader from power.

The Muslim Brotherhood is likely to put up a strong fight in upcoming political contests, and has already started to accuse their secular opponents of betraying the revolution in the service of the feloul.

In his last speech after the military coup, Mr. Morsi described an old-regime conspiracy against him. Such opinions were common among pro-Morsi protesters marching on Friday.

"Ahmed Shafiq has been their man from the beginning," said Ahmed Ouda, 27 years old. "They couldn't rig the election in his favor last year, so they did the next best thing which is to ease him back through this so-called road map."

After Mr. Morsi claimed authority over Egypt's judiciary in November, many of the young secular activists behind the revolution against Mr. Mubarak made common cause with Mr. Shafiq's supporters and other NDP loyalists.

The all-hands-on-deck approach continued into the spring, as liberal parties debated whether to field candidates for parliamentary polls that had been slated for the spring.

At the time, Mr. Abul Ghar said, the youth in his party seemed to have changed their views on the feloul during Mr. Morsi's year in office. Many were more willing to incorporate the feloul into their movement. The party decided to accept former NDP members who weren't close to Mr. Mubarak and whose records were clean of corruption allegations. The election was eventually put on hold.

Gamal al Zini, a former NDP parliamentarian from the Nile Delta city of Damiet, said he has had regular meetings with local youth activists, Tamarod leaders and members of Mr. ElBaradei's Constitution Party since May.

"People I knew who met me upon my return, who had insulted me for being an NDP member, they met me with apologies," he said.

"They said 'we didn't know the truth, now we see the real face of the [Muslim Brotherhood],' " said Mr. Zini.

Write to Matt Bradley at
