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Egypt's House of the Rising Son
It is a strange kind of republic in which presidents serve for life. It is an even stranger one in which rulers inherit power from their fathers.(…) The dissolution of the Egyp¬tian monarchy in 1952 marked a turning point in Egyptian politics, ushering in military control and eliminating privileges that had accrued to some families over centuries.
In the five-and-a-half decades since the Egyptian revolution, army officers ac¬crued their own privileges. They occupied senior positions in government, and they retired to senior positions in business.(…)
Gamal Mubarak, the son of Egypt's leader and a growing favorite to be his successor, is part of this broader trend. President Hosni Mubarak grew up in a vil¬lage in the Nile Delta, one of five children of a low-level bureaucrat. The mili¬tary academy was Mubarak's ticket out of rural poverty(…).His son Gamal, however, grew up in the bosom of the officer corps. He attended English-speaking schools, and saw his father become the air force chief of staff when he was six and sworn in as vice president when he was 12.(…)
For more than a decade, Gamal Mubarak has evinced increasing interest in government. He became a student of the British Parliament, and he became increasingly active in Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party. At the same time, his father proved allergic to the idea of cultivating a pool of potential successors. Hosni Mubarak not only failed to appoint a vice president, but he seemed to undermine anyone who might aspire to such a position. While there is no in¬dication that it was his father's intention, Gamal Mubarak has been, for more than a decade, the only Egyptian for whom it was safe to harbor high political ambitions.
In his time as a rising force in Egyptian politics, Gamal Mubarak has made some interesting alliances. Most visibly, he has sought to woo the business communi¬ty and intellectuals by wrapping himself in the mantle of reform.
(…)More subtly, Gamal Mubarak seems to have reached out to the security services as well. The military and the domestic intelligence services retain tremendous power in Egypt, and in the country's rapidly liberalizing media environment, investigating them -- or even questioning them -- is one of the few remaining taboos.
Almost 60 percent of Egypt's governors are former generals, and virtually every minis¬try has retired military men among its senior ranks. If there is any set of institutions that could prevent someone from coming to power, or ensure that an alternative candidate came to the fore, it would be the security services. Close observers note that Gamal Mubarak is increasingly seen in the company of generals, and he increasingly talks about the need for security. Egyptians whisper that Gamal has sought to make a deal with the security services in which he agrees not to meddle in their perquisites, and they agree to leave him alone.
Many Egyptians seem distressed at the idea of a Gamal Mubarak presidency. In October, the legendary Egyptian journalist Muhammad Hassanein Haykel pro¬posed in an interview that Egypt would be much better off with a committee of senior Egyptians ruling the country -- and he explicitly left Gamal Mubarak off the list.(…)
Should Gamal Mubarak rise to power, he would inherit a governmental appara¬tus that seems weaker now than at any time in the last century. There is also no guarantee he could retain power.
Whatever Gamal Mubarak's political fortunes, though, it seems unlikely that Egypt will slide into chaos. The military and intelligence services remain strong and respected, a guarantor against the abyss. And in any event, his 81-year-old father shows little sign of leaving office. With presidential elections looming in 2011, the most likely victor appears to be Hosni Mubarak.
