Friday, Dec 26, 2003
Who after Mubarak?
By Neil Macfarquhar
Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal, may as yet lack the necessary support in either the army, or among officials of the governing party.
GAMAL MUBARAK, dressed in an open-collared white shirt, black pants and loafers, had been onstage at the American University in Cairo talking about political and economic reform for roughly two hours before one student finally asked the question on everyone's mind.
Was the young Mubarak planning to run for President, the student wanted to know. If so, did he expect to win a one-candidate referendum with some 99 per cent of the vote, as his father habitually does? Mr. Mubarak, 40, demurred. "I have been asked that question 100 times," he said, smiling. "There are rumours that I am being groomed for the post, but they are baseless."
There was a time when nobody would have believed that response. Egyptians seemed resigned to the fact that President Hosni Mubarak's second son, Gamal, as his presumed successor, would at least be a young civilian preaching reform, even if not a democratically elected leader.
But since that scene at the university unfolded in May, the move toward political reform seems to have stalled, and with it the expectation that Egypt will experience any substantial change as long as Hosni Mubarak, the 75-year-old President who has governed for 22 years, remains in office. Opponents of the Mubarak Government now say that senior officials in Cairo have adopted the vocabulary of reform without actually undertaking any. The officials are both responding to Washington's campaign for greater democracy in the Middle East, and trying to shore up the tumbling popularity of the governing party, which took a drubbing in the 2000 parliamentary elections. But there is no intention, critics say, of disturbing the men who have been running Egypt for over two decades.
Egyptians themselves, especially members of the younger generation, in touch with the outside world by way of the Internet and satellite television, are left to wonder aloud how long they will have to live under a stagnant, basically one-party system. Many of them want open presidential elections, free political parties, an end to the emergency laws that suspend many court procedures and an economy that can provide meaningful work to some 800,000 new job seekers every year.
"Hosni Mubarak has not ruled for even one hour without emergency law," says Ahmed Belal, a young political activist. "I am 21 years old and I have never experienced living in Egypt under normal conditions."
The problems Egypt's leaders face in trying to give more voice to popular demands for a greater say in running the country, while not diluting their control, is one inherent in all the Arab political systems spawned in the 1950s and 1960s. In Egypt, after Gamal Abdel Nasser, it was Anwar el-Sadat, and then Hosni Mubarak - all of them military men. Since he took office after Sadat's assassination by Islamic militants in 1981, Hosni Mubarak has refused to select a Vice-President. Everyone assumed the next President would be like the others: a military man. The most frequently mentioned is Lt. Gen. Omar Suleiman, the head of the intelligence agency who has also been given the Palestinian Affairs portfolio.
But then Gamal Mubarak began assuming a public role after returning from a stint in London as an investment banker. In 2002, he was appointed head of the newly created Policy Secretariat in the governing National Democratic Party. His ostensible mandate was reform. Egypt's intellectuals and commentators assumed this was the first rung on a ladder that would have led to party leader by now, with later promotions to Cabinet Minister, Vice-President and ultimately leader of Egypt. But Gamal Mubarak has not moved past the first rung, and has even lowered his public profile. On the rare occasions when he is asked if his son will succeed him, Hosni Mubarak's most pointed response has been, "Egypt is not Syria." Syria changed its Constitution to allow the 34-year-old Bashar Assad to succeed his father. Most political analysts believe the President's son lacks the necessary support in either the army, still viewed as the country's most powerful institution, or among officials of the governing party to succeed in case his father dies suddenly. Yet it is considered unlikely that Mr. Mubarak will step aside for his son. The issue of succession was highlighted last month when the President collapsed during a speech before Parliament, returning to the podium some 50 minutes later, apparently wrestling with nothing more than flu. Rather than raise questions about succession, however, Egypt's official press swung into action. ``The Most Difficult 50 Minutes Egypt Has Ever Lived Through,'' read a headline in the daily, Al Ahram.
The once independent weekly, Roz el-Yousuf, published an entire issue under the heading ``Egypt Breathless for an Entire 50 Minutes,'' with articles reminiscent of the fanzine of an ailing rock star. ``Intellectuals: We Were Scared to Death'' was the title of one story, while the next was ``Artists: The President Loves Egyptians so Egyptians Love Him Back.''
Mr. Mubarak will undoubtedly present himself for a fifth term in 2005, but the question of succession remains unanswered. Oddly, analysts and opposition figures say the one way that Gamal Mubarak might easily become President is the one route that his father and the party have ruled out - amending the 1971 Constitution to allow for direct presidential elections. The toothless Opposition parties have been demanding such a step for years, rather than having Parliament select a candidate for a referendum.
- New York Times News Service
Copyright © 2003, The Hindu.