Egypt's anti-succession campaign launched amid low security (Feature)

By Nehal el-Sherif Oct 15, 2009, 0:32 GMT

Cairo - Pedestrians in downtown Cairo kept looking up to see what was going on in the Ghad party's headquarters late Wednesday as patriotic songs blared from loud speakers in the apartment.

All they could see was a crowded balcony on the second floor and a huge banner saying 'The Egyptian campaign against presidential succession.'

Inside the apartment, however, a huge crowd was waiting to witness many opposition movements unifying to launch the campaign.

'On October 14, 28 years ago, Egyptian President Mohamed Hosny Mubarak took his first presidential oath. He swore to protect the people's interests and swore to respect the constitution,' said Ayman Nour, former head of the opposition Ghad (Tomorrow) party.

'Today, October 14, 2009, all national powers from different sections of the people are concerned about the Republican regime. Today we launch our campaign.'

Nour walked into the crowded hall on a pale, red carpet that reaches down to the main gate of the building, as the Egyptian anthem played through the speakers.

Only released in February for health reasons, Nour had been imprisoned since 2005 on forgery charges after winning, according to the government, 7 per cent in a presidential election.

Nour said that a founding statement might be finished before the end of the year.

The former lawyer was accompanied by opposition leaders, representing liberal, leftist and Islamist parties and movements, who gave short speeches to express their unity in the campaign.

'We come to express the people's conscience and defend their free will,' said Mohamed el-Beltagi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group.

Many of the participants said that the campaign is not aimed at Mubarak or his son, Gamal, but is against 'the system' as whole.

Egypt's next presidential election is scheduled for 2011, and many observers believe that Mubarak, 81, is grooming Gamal, 45, for the job, though both men have repeatedly denied such rumours.

'This (succession) was never raised between me and my son. It is not on my mind to have my son inherit me. ... It is the decision of the population to elect who would represent people. It is not for me to decide that,' President Mubarak said in an interview with a US TV network in August.

Despite such denials, suggestions have persisted, partly because Mubarak did not appoint a vice president and because of his 2002 decision to appoint Gamal as head of a policy-making committee in the ruling National Democratic Party.

'This campaign is not against Gamal himself. It is against the policies. We want a lifestyle and a political system that makes the people feel they have a voice and a right,' said Mohamed Anwar Sadat, nephew of late president Anwar Sadat.

The campaign has launched a website to post news and events. There will also be broadcasting on the website for six hours daily.

During the conference, Nour announced that the campaign received support of more than 10,000 people through the website and said he received words of support from many prisoners, including jailed activist bloggers.

While speeches echoed in Talaat Harb square, dozens of people stood below the apartment to listen to the enthusiastic words, as only few members of the security forces sat in one small vehicle below the party's headquarters.

'For the first time, there is no security downstairs. I don't know why,' Mohamed Abdul-Qodous, chairman of the freedoms committee at Egypt's press syndicate, said sarcastically. 'This Egyptian campaign is for all Egyptians. This is why we need to go down to the streets and broaden our base, instead of restricting it to just few intellectuals.'

Slogans of the campaign were put on the wall, showing a golden crown with a red circle over it.

'This is a moment history will stop at for a long time, just like it stopped when Ahmed Urabi shouted 'We will not be enslaved' decades ago,' Kefaya (Enough) movement coordinator Abdel-Halim Qandeel said.

Revolutionary leader Urabi, who revolted against the ruler of Egypt in 1879 to become the first Egyptian national political and military leader to rise from the poor Egyptian class.

'Gamal will not rule us ... over our dead bodies,' Qandil shouted.