Mariam Karouny
Reuters
CAIRO: Choosing a possible successor to Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, 81, is not on the agenda for a ruling party conference this weekend, a party official said, despite silence on the issue fueling speculation that it might be. Mubarak, who has run Egypt for 28 years and will address the National Democratic Party conference that began on Saturday, has yet to say whether he will run in the 2011 election.
His son Gamal, 45, a top party official, is tipped as the most likely candidate to lead US-ally Egypt after his father leaves office, although father and son have denied such plans.
The National Party head Safwat al-Sherif poured cold water on the idea that a decision could come this weekend, saying selection of a presidential candidate could only occur at a special party meeting.
“We have a special conference to choose the party’s candidate in which the name would be put forward to the special conference, which is not held annually, and choosing the party’s candidate for the presidency would be its one and only subject,” he said. His comments were made to a television program and reported by the official news agency MENA.
Hala Mustafa, an Egyptian analyst and member of the party’s policy committee, told Reuters the issue of a presidential candidate would more likely be on the agenda next year.
“There is still a lot of debate regarding the next candidate mainly because the president did not say whether he will run or not. He had in the past said he would lead until his last breath which gave the impression that he might re-run,” she said.
Egypt will hold parliamentary elections in 2010.
Mubarak spoke on the opening day but made no mention of the presidential vote in 2011. He promised a “free, fair and competitive” parliamentary vote. “We welcome competition and objective opposition,” he said.
Opponents and rights groups complained of widespread abuses in the last parliamentary election in 2005.
Gamal Mubarak, who heads the policy committee, said this year’s party conference would deal mostly with reforms.
He is not the only potential successor. Analysts say intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is another possible contender.
Egypt’s Brotherhood – no presidential bid
Mariam Karouny
Reuters
CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s biggest opposition group, will not attempt to challenge the ruling party in the 2011 presidential election under the existing Constitution, its leader told Reuters in an interview.
The group is officially banned, forcing supporters to contest elections as independents. But the hurdles set by the Constitution make it virtually impossible for any independent to run for president against the candidate backed by President Hosni Mubarak’s party.
Brotherhood leader Mohammad Mehdi Akef told Reuters that his movement, which seeks to establish an Islamic state by nonviolent means, would not make an electoral show of defiance.
“There are a lot of preparations that need to be addressed [before discussing] a presidential nomination, and at the forefront are freedom and a clean constitution,” Akef said.
Reiterating the Brotherhood’s position that it did not want open confrontation with the state, he said: “I made my own calculations. Should I go by force and clash with the regime? I say no, we don’t do that.”
The Brotherhood, which renounced violence long ago, is seen as the only group able to muster hundreds of thousands of disciplined supporters against the government, but analysts say it fears sparking a crackdown that could crush it.
It controls about a fifth of the seats in parliament’s lower house through supporters who ran in 2005 as independents. The authorities have since obstructed its efforts to build on those gains in municipal councils or the upper house.
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