A poster that helped fuel the internet-led revolution that consumed Egypt 16 months ago. (Flickr/ People's Open Graphics)

His attorneys reported that Mubarak has been slipping in and out of a coma and remains in the intensive care unit in one of Cairo's best-equipped hospitals. The former president has relied on a ventilator to help him breathe. 

Many in the country believe that Mubarak's failing health is a ruse carried out by his fellow generals and legal team who had been pressing prison authorities to transfer the former mandatary from the prison hospital, to a better equipped facility. Prison authorities refused the request. 

Mubarak's health woes add to an already equivocal political situation.

It is now 16 months after Mubarak's ousting, and yet Egypt has yet to elect a democratic leader. The first free presidential vote was held last weekend and immediately after it, the Muslim Brotherhood declared victory for their candidate, Mohammed Morsy. Rival, Ahmed Shafik challenged this claim and announced that he was ahead. Meanwhile, the election committee announced that they would review the complaints. Reuters reports that the election committee said "it could still not say who won and that it might miss a target of Thursday to announce results."

In a nation used to rigged ballots, the clouted election along with the recent dissolution of parliament (Egypt's only institution with a popular mandate) by the military rulers in power, have instilled fear in once hopeful Egyptians. The latter now fear that their country is moving away from the democratic future it set out to acquire and returning to the totalitarian state it left behind. 

The Muslim Brotherhood announced that if Shafik were to be announced the winner, they would "take to the streets to defend ourselves."The brotherhood claims that there is a slanderous campaign mounted by Shafik and his party against their candidate, Morsi.

CS Monitor reported:

"'There are attempts to spoil the political scene and delay the birth of a good regime," said el-Shater, the Brotherhood's original candidate for the presidency until he was disqualified from running by a Mubarak-era conviction."There is an attempt to recreate Mubarak's regime ... through a fierce campaign of black rumors all across the country," he said. "There are rumors related to elections' results, to arrests, illness and martial laws." Morsi, he underlined, "is the first president elected by the people."

Because of all this political clout and a rapidly declining economy, whether Mubarak's health claims are legitimate or factitious remain in the back of most Egyptians' minds.

"The news about Mubarak's health is all speculation. We should depend on reality. We can't keep following rumors," Maher Eid Hemdan, a 59-year-old pensioner in central Cairo informed Reuters."As for the elections, may the best man win."

CNN reports, "If Hosni Mubarak were to die soon -- as some close to him suggest could happen -- it would probably have little impact on the country's future."

John Stacher, an Egypt expert from Kent State University, said:

"Mubarak has been politically dead for a year and a half (...)I think there will be a lot of mythology about Hosni Mubarak in the years to come. But I would not expect massive turnout to take over Cairo or parts of the country.... In fact, if there is any public participation, it's going to be a celebration of his death."

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