Is there still a question on Gamal's impending ascendency to the throan? Any discussion of alternative candidates should be saved for only those who we wish to see in tattered careers, or on proverbial bookshelf along with Mr. Moussa at the Arab League (the most dusty of bookshelves in today's political arena of relevance).
Mubarak has been in office long enough to ensure his heir his place as the first civilian president of Egypt since the 1952 coup (no, I don't think a group of 12 soldiers with their tanks constitutes a revolution - popular or otherwise). Mubarak Senior has worked with Gamal to co-opt the major families that provide the civilian facade to the Mubarak family fortune...serving as fronts, paying tribute in a manner that would make the greatest Don envious.
The media campaign began over ten years ago with Gamal's picture being introduced initially as a member of the First Family then gradually his solo shots. Until today, when the average Egyptian sees him as a symbol of continuity (to be translated in their minds as stability). It's not new. Assad did it in Syria with time enough to swap children when his eldest died a martyr in his Italian sportscar.
Mubarak's position seems even more managable considering the father doesn't show any signs of leaving this world anytime soon. But how will it transpire? Will Hosni hand over the reigns to Gamal while there's still breath left in the old pharaoh? Or will he continue to cling to office like an Egyptian male to a pretty girl on a bus leaving Gamal to fight his way to power as the head of the National Democratic Party?
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