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* Mubarak's patronage system helped ensure his survival

* Local strongmen in rural areas key to network

* Patronage network now backs army chief Sisi

SHEBIN EL KOM, Egypt, Jan 29 (Reuters) - When an uprising toppled Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak, men like Ahmed Saif who helped run his vast patronage network melted away.

Three years later, Saif and other former members of Mubarak's party are back in action in the populous countryside, offering everything from refrigerators for newlyweds to welfare-like stipends to the poor in exchange for votes.

Their return casts fresh doubts about the stumbling political transition in the biggest Arab state.

Although Sisi is expected to win by a landslide, the backing these wealthy local kingpins are offering suggests he could entrench his rule much the same way Mubarak did.

The 2011 revolt was meant to rid the political landscape of operators like Saif, who served in parliament under Mubarak. His money and connections give him immense sway in rural Egypt, where people usually vote for whoever distributes jobs or funds.

Saif's door is always open for anyone in the Nile Delta town of Shebin El Kom, a collection of cinderblock apartment buildings on a tributary of the Nile that winds through the country's most productive farmland, north of Cairo.

"Sit down," he said, twirling prayer beads as he sipped tea in his parlour above his nationwide tour company and greeted two men who wanted money to repair their mosque.

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