The rise and rise of Gamal Mubarak

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The rise and rise of Gamal Mubarak

EGYPT

The rise and rise of Gamal Mubarak

By Issandr El Amrani in Cairo

The saga of Gamal Mubarak’s bid —

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if bid there is — to succeed his father
continues unabated. Since 2002,
when he first entered politics as an
official in Egypt’s ruling National
Democratic Party (NDP), Gamal has
climbed its ranks, overhauling its
institutions, ridding it of old bosses
and imposing his own faithful. His
control of the party now secure, the
younger Mubarak looms large over
political life.

His influence on Egyptian affairs
goes far beyond the façade of his
position as the NDP’s assistant
secretary-general and head of its
Policies Committee, an internal
think-tank that has shaped many
recent government policies. Gamal
associates fill not only most key
positions in the party, but are also
writing legislation or holding
cabinet positions. More recently,
the 46-year-old former investment
banker has become ubiquitous
on television, in newspapers and
online as the face of the fikr gedid
(new thinking) he introduced to the
NDP in 2003.

At the end of October the NDP
held its sixth annual conference,
an occasion to launch new policies
and announce internal changes.

Last year, the conference saw
Gamal and acolytes rise in ranks
and a new mechanism adopted
for the selection of candidates in
presidential elections. This year, a
more muted conference held under
the slogan “Only for You” drove
home a message of social justice
and care for the concerns of the
average Egyptian in these difficult
economic times.

It was also a parade for the
party’s accomplishments under
Gamal. When Ahmad Ezz, the steel
billionaire and MP who, as chief
whip and organisation secretary, is
the key enforcer of the new NDP,
took to the stage to praise Gamal’s
role in fostering a “revolution”
in the party, it was more than just
the usual sycophancy. Gamal can
credibly take credit for rejuvenating
the NDP, recruiting new talent and
clarifying what it stands for beyond
being the inheritor of Gamal Abdel-
Nasser’s Arab Socialist Union,
abolished by Anwar Sadat in 1978
when multi-partyism was introduced.

Gamal’s NDP — officially
at least — balances liberal economic
policy with a concern for social
justice. It also advocates gradual
political reform based on the
concept of citizenship and equal
rights under the law.

Opposition cynicism

As much as this message has been
hammered in at this and past
NDP conferences, it is not getting
through to much of the independent
and opposition press. The NDP
is widely perceived as a “party of
businessmen” whose sole purpose,
aside from the personal enrichment
of its members, is to advance the
“Gamal Mubarak project” of inheritance
of power. Some columnists
wonder cynically if NDP leaders
are sadists bent on making the life
of Egyptians miserable.

No matter what the focus of
the NDP conference, the looming
question remains who will be the
party’s presidential candidate
in 2011, when President Hosni
Mubarak’s fifth term comes to an
end. It is too early to answer that
question, says NDP Secretary-
General Safwat al-Sharif (one of
the rare “old guard” figures left in
a leadership position, alongside
Zakaria Azmi, the president’s
powerful chief of staff who like
Gamal is assistant secretarygeneral).

The NDP will select its
candidate at a “special conference”
at some point in the future.

In the meantime, Gamal
Mubarak appears to have already
begun his campaign. He was not
only the centre of attention at
the party conference, but during
the preceding week took part in
the second online meeting with
Egyptian youth in three months.

The event is called Sharek —
Arabic for “participate.” Through
a dedicated website Gamal
took questions on the economy,
problems facing young Egyptians
in opening businesses, dealing with
corruption, and other topics. The
Sharek events, like televised debates
aired earlier this year, have shown
the public a different side of Gamal.

He is building a public persona
as a dynamic politician who is
passionate about his country’s
future and eager to recruit young
Egyptians to his cause.

This outreach is not without
its ironic moments, such as when
a young man with frustrated
ambitions asks about the need for
wasta (connections) to get a job. Not
missing a beat, Gamal — whose
political career is entirely based on
who his father is — answered that
“wasta is a fact of life in Egypt” but
the phenomenon should be fought.

More generally, commentators have
accused Gamal of trying to imitate
President Barack Obama by using
the web and resorting to a message
of hope for Egypt’s future at a time
when deep anxiety prevails. Salama
Ahmad Salama, one of Egypt’ most
prominent columnists, wrote critically
in al-Ahram: “These ‘choreographed’
dialogues are the ruling
party’s way of corralling public
opinion and duping us into thinking
that there is only one choice for
political life in Egypt in the coming
few years.”

The Mubaraks, father and son,
deny that Gamal is being groomed
to run as the NDP’s candidate in
2011. Some Egyptians believe the
president is in two minds, and that
the first lady, Suzanne Mubarak, is
the one pushing for her son.

Hats in the ring

The search for potential candidates
is well underway with favourites
including Director of General Intelligence
Omar Suleiman, International
Atomic Energy Agency chief
Muhammad ElBaradei, Nobel prizewinning
chemist Ahmad Zewail
and Arab League Secretary-General
Amr Mousa, who said last week he
did not rule out presenting himself.

The celebrated writer Muhammad
Hassanein Heikal, who has emerged
as a leading critic of the Mubaraks,
suggested recently on his al-Jazeera
show that these well-known figures
should form a transitional constitutional
committee to overhaul Egypt’s political system.

It is noteworthy that these
potential candidates are taken more
seriously than opposition politicians.

Ayman Nour, released earlier
this year after more than four years
in prison, is touring the country
to publicise his Ghad party and
claims to want to run for president
again in 2011 (although his criminal
record would disqualify him).

Nour’s events and new initiatives
he is participating in, such as
an “Egyptian Campaign against
Presidential Succession” that aims to
pick up where the Kifaya movement
left off in 2005, have been attacked
twice in the last months by NDP
supporters and security officers,
he says. The beleaguered Muslim
Brotherhood, still reeling from a
relentless security crackdown in the
past two years, announced that it
would not be fielding a candidate
— in any event, prohibitive requirements
for independent candidates
would have left it out of the running.

Indeed, only legally recognised
parties are likely to be able to field
candidates in 2011. Since a reinvigorated
NDP dominates political life,
it stands to reason that its candidate
will win. And unless Hosni Mubarak
decides, at the age of 83 and after 30
years in power, to run for a sixth
term, that candidate will be his son.

___________________________

Feuding brothers

Essam al-Erian is an affable man in his mid-50s with
a mobile phone that rarely stops ringing and an
easy sense of humour. One of Egypt’s best-known
Islamist politicians, he is seen as a progressive, keen
to distance the group from ultra-conservative views
on women, political pluralism and non-Muslims’ role
in Egyptian society.

Erian spent five years in jail in the 1990s after one
of the Mubarak regime’s periodic crackdowns on the
emerging Islamist leadership but went on to become
one of the architects of the Muslim Brothers’ 2005
electoral success, when they grabbed an unprecedented
20% of seats in the People’s Assembly (the lower house
of parliament). He is liked by many younger Islamists
and respected by his political opponents. Some of the
Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership, however, do not
like him very much.

For several years, Erian has been considered
overdue for promotion to the Brotherhood’s most
powerful body, the Guidance Bureau. But the conservatives
who control this highly hierarchical organisation
have blocked him. In mid-October, Mahdi
Akef, the Brotherhood’s General Guide, threatened to
resign if his colleagues did not accept Erian into the
Guidance Bureau. As news of his ultimatum spread,
he quickly backtracked, and the movement assured its
supporters that the whole affair had been blown out of
proportion and that the leadership was united. But he
also confirmed that he would be stepping down from
his position in January 2010, with day-to-day running
of the Brotherhood put in the hands of his deputy (and
likely successor), Muhammad Habib.

Most outside observers saw the clash over Erian’s
appointment as a rare public airing of a long-running
internal feud. Khalil al-Anani, political analyst and
author of a critical book on what he describes as the
group’s “sclerotic leadership”, believes the current
crisis is “the worst since the founding of the Brotherhood
in 1928.” Anani argues that the core of the
problem is not so much Erian as the issue of who will
succeed Akef. Earlier this year, the General Guide said
he would step down to allow others to take the post,
although previous guides have served for life. The
move was intended to send a message to the Mubarak
regime about term limits, a demand much of the
Egyptian opposition has made of the Egyptian presidency.

But it was also an attempt to democratise the
Brotherhood.

Akef, who assumed his title in 2004, is the latest in
a series of septuagenarian and octogenarian Brotherhood
leaders. During his tenure he has promoted
reforms as well as a project to launch a political party.

Erian and other reformist Brothers welcomed these
moves, but they are resisted by conservatives who feel
that the group’s priority should be daawa (proselytisation),
and that increased political activity has led to
few benefits and much greater security risks. Over the
last few years, thousands of Muslim Brothers and their
supporters have been arrested, and key leaders jailed.

To resolve the crisis quickly, the Brotherhood will be
voting within a few weeks on new appointments to the
Guidance Council. Whether Erian or other reformists
are elected, or more traditionalist figures chosen, could
have major repercussions on the course the group takes
in 2010 and beyond.

Issandr El Amrani

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