Egypt succession battle heats up online (Feature)

By Nehal el-Sherif Jul 7, 2009, 15:04 GMT

Cairo - Dueling websites supporting the two names most commonly bandied as likely successors to Egypt's 81-year-old president, Hosny Mubarak, have come online in recent weeks.

The online campaigning has put a finer point on a question that has vexed Egyptians for years.

Since Gamal Mubarak, the president's younger son, became head of the ruling National Democratic Party's Policies Secretariat in 2002, it became common wisdom that he was being groomed to succeed his father.

At other times, the stock of Egyptian spymaster Omar Suleiman, 73, has risen among Cairo's cafe pundits, who argue that his role as an interlocutor in Israeli-Palestinian talks has made him Washington's preferred candidate.

Pundits rarely mention other names from within the government, let alone from the opposition.

Egypt's next presidential elections are not until 2011. Mubarak won the 2005 polls, the first in which he ran against other candidates, with 88.6 per cent of the vote.

Less than a year later, he promised to continue as president 'as long as (his) heart is beating and (he) is breathing.'

But even Mubarak's most ardent supporters allow that he cannot live forever, and debating who will eventually succeed him has long been an Egyptian pastime.

Young opposition activists in Egypt have used blogs and social- networking sites to organize protests and to call attention to their causes for years, but have never seriously supported an individual candidate to succeed Mubarak.

In recent weeks, however, there has been a rush of new online efforts in support of Suleiman and Gamal Mubarak, both solidly identified with the regime.

'We don't want Gamal, we don't want the Muslim Brotherhood, we want Omar Suleiman,' proclaims the masthead of a mysterious new Egyptian blog.

'The push for inheritance is in full swing, with State Security as its official sponsor,' the anonymous blogger asserts, referring to Egypt's domestic intelligence service, State Security Investigations.

'Opposition parties cannot overcome their personal differences and narrow ideologies ... So from whence will Egypt's next president come?'

Similar campaigns have appeared on the social networking site, Facebook.

'I proudly support Omar Suleiman to be the next president of Egypt,' one such group is called.

Gamal Mubarak's supporters have launched counter-attacks.

'Gamal Mubarak for president - expanding the Egyptian dream,' and 'Lovers and supporters of Gamal Mubarak,' are only two examples of several Facebook groups dedicated to supporting the ruling party's 46-year-old assistant secretary-general.

'We don't dream of you, we demand you, O Gamal!' members of the latter group, which has attracted some 3,500 members, proclaims.

'Most probably Egypt's coming president will come from the same establishment as his predecessors,' said Diaa Rashwan, an analyst at Cairo's government-funded al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

'Suleiman would be the candidate with the highest chances because of his military background and his experience in dealing with complicated regional files, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,' he added.

'Of course, such campaigns might be backed up by the candidate himself,' says Rashwan. 'And now the Internet is a fast, liberal way to express oneself and sway public opinion.'