25.08.10 Egypt Politics and Security
Spontaneous campaign backs Mubarak's son Gamal
Posters backing Gamal Mubarak have been spotted in a number of Egypt's poorer
neighbourhoods. News of the posters began circulating shortly after several
online campaigners set out to gather millions of signatures calling on Gamal
to stand in the next presidential elections.
It is evident within Egypt that there is an ongoing campaign backing the
president's son who is also the senior officer of the ruling National
Democratic Party
(NDP). Government officials, however, insist that neither the NDP nor Gamal
himself have anything to do with the campaign which is said to be spontaneous
and
one that the government has no intention of silencing.
"These campaigns represent individual initiatives; they are in no way
related to the NDP. None of the leadership of the NDP has endorsed them
officially or
unofficially. So it remains a sporadic voluntary activity in society,"
said,
a senior official of the party, Aley el-Din Hilal.
There seem to be some contradictions as far as these campaigns are concerned.
Gamal Mubarak is regarded as a man of privilege; therefore it is unexpected to
find the headquarters of the People's Coalition in support of Gamal Mubarak in
one
of the poorest and most deprived areas of Cairo, or hear the organiser, Magdi
el-Murdy, suggest that Gamal Mubarak, if elected president, will help move the
power
away from the elite.
It is not surprising that members of the opposition have a different perspective
on these developments. Shadi Taha of the opposition al-Ghad party described the
campaign as an attempt to show that the Egyptian public was "begging"
Gamal to stand. He also suggested that if Gamal is elected,
it
would set Egypt back hundreds of years.
It remains unclear whether Gamal Mubarak is behind the supposedly spontaneous
presidency campaign, and whether he will ever be openly endorsed by his father
who
remains reticent about the naming of a successor and has always maintained that
he
would serve Egypt to his last breath.
Source: BBC
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