Mubarak Return Watch

Ever since the video of Husni Mubarak alive and chatting with his doctors was released ten days ago, there has been continuing speculation about when he is going to return home. He picked the new Sheikh al-Azhar from Germany. Officially, as Marc Lynch felicitously put it today, he remains "very, very not sick and doing wonderfully." So why is he still running Egypt from Germany?

Two days ago his doctors reported he would be released "in the coming days." Several non-official publications in Egypt have predicted his return "within hours" for several days now, and there was a flurry of reports suggesting he would return today, since Friday is the day off in Egypt and it's easier for the ruling party to put together a "spontaneous" mass welcome. But it's late in the evening in Cairo and there are no reports of his return.

This whole gall bladder operation has fueled rampant speculation, made the Egyptian bourse extremely nervous, and of course the revelation (only after the biopsy proved the tumor benign) that a tumor was removed added to the jitters. So it will be interesting to see if he returns over the weekend; if not, the rumors will continue.