Looming Upheaval

THAT GROWING SPECULATION SURROUNDING the future of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak should fall on the 40th anniversary of the death of the country’s erstwhile statesman and eternal hero Gamal Abdel Nasser is an interesting aside to what is a story packed full of intrigue, unbridled gossip and a lot of unknowns.

Mubarak, like his slain predecessor, Anwar Sadat, has, in the 29 years of his incumbency, never courted anything like the same popularity as Nasser (and, to be fair, was never likely to). However, concerns over the current president’s fitness to lead – the 82-year-old underwent gall bladder surgery in March and has not looked well since – have led many to look to the future, to an Egypt without Mubarak. This, analysts say, will be a new era that could have profound consequences on the future of the Middle East.

“Nature runs its course, and whether it’s a matter of months or a few years, Mubarak is in his eighties and he’s not going to stay around for too long now,” says Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa program at London’s Chatham House, speaking to The Jerusalem Report. “It’s difficult to know exactly when Mubarak will vacate the presidency but the issue of succession is gathering momentum.”

Questions over succession have inevitably involved Mubarak’s son, Gamal, a phenomenon of familial power, says Mekelberg, which has been played out in the Middle East to varying degrees of success.

“It’s a very strange development in the Middle East, because those people who rebelled against monarchy developed their own dynasty – Saddam Hussein tried to do it in Iraq, Hafiz al-Asad did it in Syria. Those regimes, which tried to be nationalistic but with shades of socialism, became almost monarchies in their own right, and the fathers tried to ensure that their sons will succeed them. But, Egypt is too important to be left to some family gains. It is the most important or one of the most important states in the Middle East. Any issue of succession and any issue of instability there can effect the entire Middle East and the [Palestine-Israeli] peace process and can have far-reaching impact on the Middle East,” notes Mekelberg.

Be that as it may, Gamal Mubarak’s potential candidature in the 2011 presidential elections under the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) is a very real possibility if his father, as current chatter and global media speculation would have it, should decide enough is enough. Yet, though campaigns have sprung up both home and abroad in support of his candidacy for president, much more important – and a truer test of Gamal’s validity as Egypt’s next rais – is the degree of unity within the elite regarding his candidacy, not to mention his own father’s state of health and the future course of the country.

Indeed, according to Mekelberg, the younger Mubarak’s claim to the presidency is by no means assured, as Egypt has many other elements that have yet to show their hand.

“Gamal’s succession to the presidency is not a certain thing. It’s always quite a reasonable likelihood that when you get to the dying moments of any regime, any government, it’s a possibility that you will see how the security service establishment, whether it be the military or the mukhabarat [secret police], and others will react to this [succession issue], how the people on the street will respond.

There are a lot of elements – you will have to see if there would be an incitement for doubt.”

Mekelberg continues, “I think the West has made many mistakes regarding Egypt in the last 20-30-years – in the way it deals with regimes that are, on the one hand, pro- Western, and, on the other, far from being democratic or far from being modern.

“Egypt’s position now reminds me of the last days of the shah [of Iran]. The potential for upheaval exists – whether it will happen or not one cannot predict. Revolutions are a bit like earthquakes – you know when they’re there that it’s too late to do anything about it,” he observes.

EGYPT’S OPPOSITION FORCES and Western advocates of democracy may denounce any thought of the 46- year-old Gamal succeeding his aging father, yet many believe that Mubarak junior may be the best bet for Egypt’s future. Mohamed Baradei, the new prominent opposition figure, Nobel Laureate and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has, for some, yet to show that he is the real alternative to the Mubarak juggernaut, despite his calls for political reform and an end to emergency law, and there has been criticism in his own ranks for the minimal length of time he has spent inside Egypt since he announced his campaign for reform. Baradei has not yet said whether he will run for president in 2011.

Gamal’s succession, then, may prove something of a pleasant surprise, says Tarek Masoud, an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, not least because of his distance from the military and old guard which, from Colonel Nasser to Colonel Anwar Sadat and then Air Chief Marshal Mubarak himself, have ruled Egypt since the military coup, which toppled King Farouk in 1952.

“Gamal Mubarak… would represent a departure from this depressingly familiar routine,” wrote Masoud in Foreign Policy in September 2010. “If he were to run and win in 2011, he would be the first leader in Egypt’s modern history never to have worn a military uniform. Of course, the fact that Gamal is a civilian would not necessarily make him gentler than his predecessors or less willing to visit the implements of coercion upon his opponents. But it might make him less able to do so, since he would lack the kind of blind loyalty the armed forces deliver to one of their own. Moreover, there is something to be said for the purely symbolic value of elevating to Egypt’s highest office someone who... helps to establish the principle of civilian authority in a country hitherto bereft of it.”

Political analysts like Masoud even promote Gamal’s ascendancy to the presidency of Egypt as an opportunity for “future opposition breakthroughs,” noting that “the election that will bring Mr. Mubarak to power will be manipulated, but it will not be the last election he will ever have to face. Every six years will bring another one. And although those elections will likely be rigged too, each will nonetheless bear a kernel of uncertainty.

Surprises at the ballot box, while rare, can happen. And sometimes election rigging itself – as we saw in the Philippines in 1986, Georgia in 2003, and the Ukraine in 2005 – can generate an opportunity for the opposition to unify, mobilize the citizenry, and force a regime to abdicate or reform.”

WHOEVER TAKES OVER FROM Mubarak, the issue of succession, and the extent to which it is gathering momentum in Egypt, is something that Israel, now into its 32nd year of peace with the North African country, has reason to monitor with great interest, if not a little unease.

“For Israel it is a crucial issue,” says Mekelberg. “The state of Egypt is an anchor of Israel’s strategy and security and any transition to something completely different – and it doesn’t have to happen immediately and doesn’t mean that even the Muslim Brotherhood come to power tomorrow or the end of peace – can have a gradual impact.

Peace between Israel and Egypt is stable, it’s robust, but it’s cold. There is no warmth there; it’s not the kind of peace that many envisaged back in 1979 when the Camp David Peace Agreement was signed. It…derives from national interest. But there are certain issues, like Gaza for instance, which are of dual Egypt-Israel importance. There is the issue of containing fundamentalism, the issue of dealing with Iran – these show that Egypt and Israel have common interests that are important to maintain. If Egypt takes a completely different track, in the long run that will impact on Israel’s security.”

The issue of succession in Egypt and the uncertainty that surrounds it is something that lies at the door of both Mubarak himself and his longtime benefactor and partner, the United States, adds Mekelberg.

“The United States has made the same mistake as it has with many other governments in the region – Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf countries, for instance – where its general policy is that if you have a regime that is comfortable and convenient, then you don’t think beyond it, you don’t take a 10, 15, 20 year consideration into how these countries can move into being a more accountable, transparent government. And, Mubarak, while very responsible internationally, is very irresponsible domestically. He didn’t create a system within Egypt that would be stable beyond him; it was about him being in power instead of going through democratization. So when he goes, there will be a lot of dirty things: Is there a chance to replace the regime, the nature of the regime, that kind of thing. It leaves too many question marks.”

If Gamal were to succeed his father and follow the lead of Syria’s Bashar Asad, who took over after his father’s death, would he be able to negotiate the same path as Mubarak senior with the same degree of resilience and “success,” notwithstanding the clamor from the elite youth and middle classes for constitutional change? “It all depends on the security establishment – whom they’re going to support,” continues Mekelberg. “In this kind of country where the security and the military is all important, if they are going to support Gamal, then he will be able to lead, at least for a while. A lot of Middle East experts had many doubts about Bashar – and he’s not as capable as Gamal and doesn’t have the same leadership qualities as Gamal. Yet look at Bashar at 10 years [after he assumed power] – he looks quite stable and unless something surprising happens, he’ll continue to be there.

“It’s not only about whether the leaders are strong enough. It’s about whether the people are afraid of change. In Syria, for instance, the fear of change is bigger than what people think would be the benefit of change. It might be the same case in Egypt – the people might not be too happy with Gamal but they might ask what happens if things did change, where would we be standing in all of this? Because our livelihood, our safety, our security depends on having a smooth transition.

“This would ensure more the fear of real change, the radical change than genuine support for Gamal,” Mekelberg points out.

Yet, what of Mubarak himself? Will there be a vacancy to begin with? Is all this talk of the former vice-president to Sadat and the man who has survived at least six attempts on his life not running for re-election next year a little premature, despite his fragile health? If a recent TV interview with the ruling party’s head of media, Ali Eldin Hilal, is to believed, then the answer is a resounding yes.

“The candidate of the National Democratic Party will be President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak... This is the will of the leadership of the party,” said Hilal on the American Arab channel Alhurra on October 21, appearing to calm any nerves before the scheduled parliamentary elections on November 28.

Yet, whether Mubarak vacates his position now or in the future, it will be a seismic event, says Mekelberg.

“It will be a massive event. Egypt is the biggest and the strongest state in the Arab world and succession in Egypt is big, especially when this is the country that probably has the most important peace with Israel. This is such a crucial state in the Middle East and any change there – especially if it’s not peaceful – can have massive consequences on the region.

One should never underestimate this.”

Whether the ailing Hosni Mubarak vacates the presidency now or in the future could have a consequences on the region.