What if Ahmed Ezz returned to Egypt’s political scene?

When my colleague Nasr Abdo, managing editor of Al-Bawaba News, contacted me to tell me that Engineer Ahmed Ezz, the former secretary of the National Democratic Party, intends to run for parliament, I told him that Ezz is smarter than this, because he knows that it would be considered a political and financial suicide at the same time.

But then I added that Ahmed Ezz is also an adventurer. He toyed with the whole country when he decided to take over the 2010 parliament, undisputedly, for the benefit of the National Party and Gamal Mubarak’s group, in a scandalous attempt, at the time, to prepare for the process of succession of power.

Ahmed Ezz, born 12 January 1959, is an Egyptian businessman and one-time politician, the owner of Ezz Steel and the former chairman of Egypt's national assembly's budget committee. He was also the organizational secretary of the National Democratic Party of Egypt.

In fact, Ahmed Ezz’s position, and my position on what he is doing now, reminded me of when news circulated in March of 2012 about the intention of engineer Khairat Al-Shater to run for the presidency.

I said literally that day, in a press statements published by Youm7 newspaper, on March 31, 2012, that this was the beginning of the Muslim Brotherhood political suicide, and I added that the Brotherhood’s attempt to nominate a presidential candidate like Khairat al-Shater after their takeover of the Parliament is nothing but an attempt to seize the whole nation, and I said that the group will surpass the National Party in the field of controlling political life and society in general.

All of my expectations were true, and the group nominated Morsi al-Ayat instead of al-Shater, who was excluded by the High Elections Committee, the move which was considered the last nail that was struck in the coffin of the group, which has been stirring controversy for eighty years.

Now comes the turn of Ahmed Ezz, who miraculously escaped the wrath of the Egyptians, after the January 25 revolution, due to the damage he had caused to the Egyptian political life and the general atmosphere, to be betrayed by his intelligence, thinking that the past days and years were enough to forget everything.

Ezz forgot that the Egyptians do not tolerate that easily, especially if they are angry, and their anger may not be tolerated by Ezz this time. Myself, I hope that Ezz does not do it in order to protect himself first from political and financial suicide, and in order to preserve a country that is trying to recover from its wounds that it suffered, due to the actions of Ezz and his likes.

On 5 October 2012, Ahmed Ezz was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to seven years in jail – plus a fine of 19.5bn Egyptian pounds. These sentences were later appealed by Ahmed Ezz.