EGYPT: ACTIONS LOUDER THAN WORDS - GAMAL MUBARAK

Viewing wikileaks.cable 06CAIRO2010,Summary -------

¶1. (C) The public profile of Gamal Mubarak, presidential son
and rising star in the ruling party, has increased in recent
months. His appearance in late March on an evening talk show
and a highly publicized visit to a Cairo slum have fueled
speculation that an effort to succeed his father is moving
full speed ahead. The possibility that Gamal might succeed
his father remains deeply unpopular on the street - a
sentiment often echoed by commentators in the independent and
opposition press. Gamal has denied that he harbors
presidential ambitions, but many believe his actions speak
louder than his words. The intra-family politics of a Gamal
succession bid are unclear. Conventional wisdom holds that
Suzanne Mubarak is her younger son's most ardent booster.
Gamal's chances are improved by the fact that there are no
other obvious contenders for the presidency waiting in the
wings. End summary.

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Burning Issue
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¶2. (C) The issue of presidential succession is the hottest
single issue on Egypt's domestic political scene. Unlike his
predecessors, President Mubarak has never named a Vice
President. Mubarak, who began his fifth six year term in
September 2005, will turn 78 in May. Though he is vigorous
and healthy, there is general recognition that the actuarial
tables will catch up with Mubarak sooner or later.
Speculation that Mubarak was grooming his son Gamal to
succeed him increased markedly in 2002, when the younger
Mubarak assumed a prominent leadership post in the ruling
National Democratic Party (NDP), just two years after Bashar
al-Asad succeeded his father in Syria.

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Stage Setting
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¶3. (C) Both Gamal and his father have repeatedly denied that
there is any plan for a "succession scenario." More
important than such words, many Egyptians tell us, are the
actions of Gamal, his father, and others, which appear to be
setting the stage for the young Mubarak's rise to power. In
the summer of 2004 and again at the end of 2005, the
President shuffled his cabinet, replacing "old guard" figures
with younger, ambitious technocrats, most with direct or
indirect links to Gamal. In early 2006, a shake-up in the
ruling NDP promoted Gamal to the post of Assistant
Secretary-General (co-equal with Zakaria Azmy, the

SIPDIS
President's de-facto Chief of Staff, and old-guard cabinet
veteran Mufeed Shehab). The party shuffle also brought a
number of other Gamal allies into key party leadership
positions, replacing a number of old-guard rival kingmakers,
including the notorious machine politician Kamal al-Shazly.


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Settling Down
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¶4. (C) Gamal's February engagement to the 24 year old
socialite Khadiga el-Gammal is widely viewed as another step
on the path to the presidency. In a society where men
typically marry before their 30th birthday, Gamal's
bachelorhood has extended into his 40's. Thus Gamal's
engagement, cynics tell us, was engineered to broaden his
appeal.

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"Not for Any Other Purpose"
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¶5. (C) On March 28, Gamal paid a visit, camera crews in tow,
to the slums of Agouza al-Qadima in Giza, just west of
Central Cairo. Gamal was there, with Housing Minister (and
ally) Ahmed al-Maghraby, to cut the ribbon on new low income
housing units prepared by his Future Generation Foundation, a
development group he founded in 1999, aimed at addressing the
needs of poor youth. Most political observers regard the
foundation as a vehicle primarly intended for Gamal's public
entree onto the political stage. "We came to help and serve
only - not for any other purpose," Gamal told accompanying
journalists in Agouza.

¶6. (C) Later that evening, Gamal made a rare appearance on a
talk show on State Channel 1, promoted all day in advance of
the broadcast and re-aired on March 29. Gamal focused his
remarks on his work to rejuvenate the NDP and promote reform
and "new thinking." He denied that he was out of touch with
the public, asserting that "one enjoys...going down into the
street and listening to the people." He also asserted that
he regularly visits the provinces, but usually keeps a low
profile lest people ascribe ulterior motives. We have
noticed an uptick of recent Gamal forays outside of Cairo.
He stood in for his father, grounded in Cairo by a dust
storm, at the ribbon cutting for an international air show in
Sharm el Sheikh. Given all the attention, he could have
easily been mistaken as the head of state himself.

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Stone Throwers
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¶7. (C) On his alleged presidential ambitions, Gamal told
Egyptian talk show viewers on March 28 that he had "made
clear as daylight" that he did not intend to seek the
presidency and was instead focused on his current efforts to
promote reform and serve society. These denials have been
generally disregarded. "He is repackaging himself - if he is
not interested, why is he going to all this trouble?"
prominent liberal dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim recently mused
to a western journalist. Former Nasser advisor and
influential writer Mohamed Hassanein Heikal has made
opposition to Gamal's succession a staple of his regular
newspaper columns in the independent press. The notion that
Gamal might succeed his father, Heikal has written, is an
affront to Egypt's republican principles.

¶8. (C) Abdel Halim Qandil, editor of the Nasserist weekly
Al-Araby (and a co-founder of the Kifaya protest movement),
was a pioneer of the anti-Gamal movement, authoring in 2003 a
series of scathing editorials against the alleged plot to
install Gamal and underlining the public's "universal
rejection" of the notion. These editorials, many believe,
were linked to Qandil's brief 2004 abduction and beating by
still unidentified thugs, who left him bruised and naked on
the Suez desert highway.

¶9. (C) Very publicly resigning from the NDP in early March,
leading liberal thinker Osama el-Ghazaly Harb told us of his
disillusionment with the party's reform process, which he
came to believe was merely a vehicle for Gamal to promote his
political career. Imprisoned opposition politician Ayman
Nour and his supporters have repeatedly insisted to us that
it was his threat to Gamal that led to his political
destruction. Like Gamal, Nour is 42 years old.

¶10. (C) An article that appeared March 23 in the maverick
independent paper Al-Dustour attacked Gamal from a new angle.
With dubious sourcing, the paper alleged that the Egyptian
brokerage and financial analysis firm EFG-Hermes had
manipulated the early March drop of the Cairo-Alexandria
Stock Exchange to the advantage of its partners and clients
and at the expense of small investors, adding that Gamal
Mubarak is on the firm's board. The article clearly got
Gamal's attention: He acknowledged in his talk show
appearance that he sat on EFG's board, but insisted that his
work focused on subsidiary companies not traded on the stock
market.

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An Open Field
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¶11. (C) Despite the sniping of many Egyptian opinion-leaders,
and a more general public hostility (echoed by many of our
contacts) to Gamal's possible presidential succession, there
are few other obvious contenders for the post. The post of
Vice President has remained vacant, despite earlier
speculation that Mubarak might fill it after the 2005
elections were behind him. Of the 10 candidates who
contested Mubarak's presidency last fall, Ayman Nour, who
placed second, lost his parliamentary seat under very
controversial circumstances and was subsequently convicted of
forgery and sentenced to a seven year jail term. The
third-place finisher, Wafd Party candidate No'man Gomaa, was
arrested for attempted murder and other charges on April 1
(septel). The other eight candidates, marginal figures to
begin with, have faded back into nearly total obscurity.

¶12. (C) There are currently almost no other Egyptian
personalities with the national stature and political capital
needed to seriously contend for the presidency. One
exception could be Intelligence Chief Omar Soliman, who
wields enormous influence over national security policy and
is known to have the full confidence of Mubarak. Soliman is
often cited as a potential appointee to the long-vacant Vice
Presidential post and his profile has grown with his
well-publicized mediation visits to Israel and the
Palestinian territories.

¶13. (C) Another possible exception could be Arab League
Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who has a high public profile

SIPDIS
and generally receives favorable coverage across the spectrum
of Egyptian media outlets. Consequently, he enjoys
considerable street crediblity as a champion of Arab causes.
However, Moussa has never expressed or even hinted at any
presidential ambitions and has no Egyptian institutional
platform from which to spring. Moussa's assumption of
another five year term as Arab League SYG could be
alternately interpreted as keeping him "otherwise occupied"
or "still in the game," with respect to future political
positions, but he has never offered any hint that he intends
to wade into Egypt's domestic political scene.

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All in the Family
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¶14. (C) The intra-family politics of a Gamal succession bid
are unclear. Elder son Alaa', well-known to have extensive
business interests (many of which are privately criticized as
corrupt and exploitative) keeps a low public profile and has
never shown any inclination to wade into the political arena.
(A rare sighting of Alaa' on national TV took place during
the final game of the Africa Cup championship in late
February, when he was photographed in the stadium's VIP
section with Gamal, cheering on Egypt to its 2-1 victory over
Ivory Coast.)

¶15. (C) The President has been careful not to indicate any
overt support for Gamal, is rarely photographed with him, and
has on several occasions angrily denied to the media that
there is any plan for his younger son to succeed him. While
some have speculated that the President is ambivalent about
Gamal's political future, he has not stood in the way of the
rise of his son and his allies through the ranks of the
ruling NDP, or obstructed his increased public profile.
Moreover, the President has twice in the past two years
shuffled his cabinet and replaced "old guard" elements with
younger technocrats linked to Gamal. While there is little
public evidence, commonly accepted wisdom in Cairo is that
First Lady Suzanne Mubarak is Gamal's most ardent political
patron. Unlike the President, the First Lady is often
photographed at public events with Gamal, frequently in
connection with social issues. Her power and influence, many
argue, are keys to Gamal's viability. Sources tell us that
she has kept Mubarak pere from naming a Vice President.

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Legal Framework Wired
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¶16. (C) The legal/electoral stage, rearranged in 2005 with
the amendment of Article 76 of the constitution, currently
guarantees that the ruling NDP, increasingly dominated by
Gamal and his allies, will retain their lock on the
presidency. Of all 20 of Egypt's legally recognized parties,
only the NDP currently meets the conditions as defined in the
amendment to field a presidential candidate. (The rules set
forth in the amendment state that only parties holding five
percent or more of the seats in each of the People's Assembly
and the Shura Council. The bar is set higher for
independents, who must obtain endorsements from 65 PA
members, 25 Shura Council members, and 10 local council
members from each of at least 14 of the 26 provinces.) While
voters will have opportunities to change the current makeup
of the Shura Council in 2007 and 2009, and the People's
Assembly in 2010, should a presidential transition become
necessary sooner, there would be no legal or procedural
hurdles for any NDP candidate to the presidency.

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A Military Stumbling Block?
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¶17. (C) A key stumbling block for any effort to bring Gamal
Mubarak to the presidency could be the military. Each of
Egypt's three presidents since the republic was established
in 1952 were drawn from the military's officer corps, and the
military has historically been the ultimate guarantor of the
president's rule. Gamal Mubarak did not serve as a military
officer (and it is not clear whether he ever completed, even
"on paper," his national military service) and unlike his
father, can not take the military's support for granted.
This factor is often cited by our contacts, who believe that
Soliman, the intelligence chief with a military background,
would have to figure in any succession scenario for Gamal, if
only as a transitional figure. Another theory is that some
other military officer could emerge from obscurity as a
presidential contender. (Defense Minister Tantawi is
acknowledged to be frail and without any political ambition.)


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Comment
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¶18. (C) Gamal Mubarak's rise in the ruling NDP, his attempts
to position himself as a "friend of the people," and as the
national champion of reform and "new thinking," are all
compelling evidence that his political ambitions are real -
denials notwithstanding. Despite palpable public hostility
to his succession, and potential stumbling blocks, the way
forward for Gamal currently appears open. Gamal and his
ambitious allies, such as MP and NDP figure Ahmed Ezz and
economic reform ministers such as Rachid Rachid and Youssef
Boutrous Ghali, are apparently banking that structural
improvements to the economy will deliver tangible benefits to
the masses, and build a support base that extends beyond
affluent business circles.