Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Egypt's tussle at the top


Even if the rumoured election 'battle' emerges, the real fight is within the ruling party over protecting the interests of elites

Jack Shenker
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 July

"Egypt's ageing leader may have defiantly promised to remain in office "until his last breath" but the drumbeat of presidential succession has been growing steadily louder in recent weeks. Hosni Mubarak, now 81, looks increasingly frail and waxen; as the light begins to fade on his pharaonic 27 years in power and his face becomes ever more absent from the day-to-day running of the country, speculation is mounting of imminent change at the top.

Secret Israeli intelligence reports have been leaked, unguarded comments to the Saudi King have been reprinted and phantom websites trumpeting the credentials of potential replacements have appeared. There is, as one Egyptian blogger put it, "something in the air"........"

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