All eyes on Mubarak's son while speculation rife about successor

Cairo: The question is ubiquitous — in the media, the street and political gatherings: Who is Egypt's next president? No clear answer is provided despite the rumours that Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, is gearing for a father-son succession.

As the annual congress of President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party is under way, leaders of the party have been at pains to give no clue about the next president.

"The presidential election is two years away. Why should the party name its candidate now? The opposition parties have not declared their candidates either," Mufeed Shehab, Egypt's Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and a senior official in the party, said on the sidelines of the annual congress.

Mubarak, 81, who has been in power, has yet to say if he will seek a sixth six-year term. He has not designated a successor though opposition claims he is grooming his 46-year-old younger son Jamal to succeed him.

Both the father and the son have repeatedly denied claims of hereditary handover of power.

Special conference

"There will be a special conference to choose the party's candidate for the presidency," Safwat Al Sherif, the secretary-general of the ruling party, said on Saturday. "This will be the only item on the agenda of this conference," he added.

Mubarak, an ex-air force commander, looked in good health and displayed a sense of humour as he addressed the convention of the party on Saturday night.

Making no mention of the presidential election, he urged his party, which wields majority in both houses of the parliament, to be prepared for the 2010 legislative elections. Mubarak promised a free, fair and competitive parliamentary election.

Last week, opposition reacted angrily to a statement attributed to Prime Minister Ahmad Nadeef, who saw Jamal Mubarak as a possible contender for presidency.

Jamal, a West-educated banker, is the head of the ruling party's influential Politics Committee. He is usually shown in the official media touring the country, addressing rallies accompanied by senior executive officials. "Jamal's tours are unconstitutional," said independent MP Jamal Zahran.

"He is used to be seen with the government ministers while meeting with young people in order to give the impression that he is the decision-maker in this country or that he is warming up to take over," Zahran told Gulf News.

Ayman Nour, an opposition activist who had trailed a distant second to Mubarak in Egypt's first competitive presidential election in 2005, has set up an alliance, including the banned-but-strong Muslim Brotherhood, to campaign against the alleged handover of power to Mubarak's son.

In an apparent bid to derail the alleged father-son succession, opposition parties have started wooing popular figures inside and outside Egypt to stand for presidency.

Members in Al Wafd, Egypt's oldest liberal party, have recently asked Mohammad Al Baradei, an Egyptian who is currently director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to run for president in the name of Al Wafd. Al Baradei, a law professor by profession, has yet to comment on the offer. His term in the IAEA ends this month.

Other possible contenders are Amr Mousa, Egypt's ex-foreign minister, Ahmad Zewail, an Egyptian-American researcher who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999, and Omar Sulaiman, the incumbent chief of the intelligence service.

Under recent constitutional amendments, political parties in existence for at least five years, have the right to field a candidate for presidency.