Pro-reform demonstrations in Egypt could damage its economy by prompting investors to flee, President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview published Saturday.
"There is unemployment. Battling unemployment requires investment. With these demonstrations that we're seeing, the investor will flee, meaning unemployment will spread," Mubarak, 77, said in the interview with the Kuwaiti Al-Siyassah newspaper, a transcript of which was published by Egypt's semiofficial Middle East News Agency.
"It's obvious that the unjustified demonstrations have no program. They are staged just to create a state of unrest that drives out the foreign investor. There are those who want to hurt our economy, but they won't succeed."
Speaking about the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak askedwhether Egyptians would accept the ideas of the banned movement. "The people here are past the phase of misleading and they understand how things go," he noted. Mubarak added some people "want to rule through rabble-rousing and to impose (their) views and enjoy the current freedom to impose dictatorship." He added: "This will not happen."
