Egypt Snapshot: A Leadership Vacuum in Suez (Allam)
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 7:20
More than two months have passed since the upheaval that forced Egypt's president to resign, yet this bustling seaport — home of the Suez Canal — still has no working police force and a military presence so overstretched that commanders rely on community elders to disarm gunmen and on neighborhood patrols to combat the soaring crime rate.
Suez's seething population of 550,000 so hated Hosni Mubarak that the deposed president never once visited in his three-decade rule, locals assert with pride. In return, they say, the regime steered revenues from the canal, oil refineries and industrial zones to other provinces.
Suez residents, among the first to take to the streets, hoped that the overthrow of the regime would bring about a political and economic renaissance for their long-suffering city. Instead, a persistent lawlessness has settled in here that exposes the limitations of Egypt's interim military rulers and is a reminder that revolutions that so quickly sweep away authority can leave vacuums that are difficult to fill.