Fatemah Farag finds that ruling party succession politics continue to dominate what we read "Every day the worries of the democratic and reformist forces in Egypt increases as the influence of Gamal Mubarak within the ruling party escalates," says Gamaleddin Hussein in this week's Al-Arabi. On the same page Gamal Fahmi explains, "the problem is not that Gamal hijacked the headlines of reform and emptied them of their meaning so that they would become usable in consolidating his position towards the presidency he has been waiting for a long time. The problem with Gamal and the whole power inheritance scenario is that he keeps the core of the president (father) with changes only made to the rhetoric." Helmi El-Nimnim in Al-Masri Al-Youm points out that Gamal Mubarak had the opportunity of managing his political career in a way that would have opened more doors to his popularity -- for example, by distancing himself from the ruling party and establishing his own political party. "What happened, however, is that Gamal Mubarak disappointed those expectations and hopes and chose the easier path and worked within the National Democratic Party (NDP). Which is why doubts, fears and concerns have arisen vis-à-vis the issue of inheritance." It seems that Gamal Mubarak's closing statements during last week's NDP congress, saying that the issue of nominating himself in the next presidential elections was far off -- thus opening the door to the possibility that he might run -- has fuelled the privately-owned press. Wael El-Ibrashi in Sawt Al-Umma asks why Gamal Mubarak "does not announce clearly and honestly that he will not enter the next presidential elections?" going on to explain that his opposition to this scenario "is not against the person but the fact that his coming [as president] will consolidate the principle of inheriting power, and every ruler will bring his son." This was the week of the 6 October anniversary. For Osama Saraya in Al-Ahram it was an opportunity to point out that the elected president "has not stopped at his historic role and leadership of Egypt during the time of war, then in the construction of the basic infrastructure of both the political and the economic... [He] has presented an ambitious programme for the future..." But Khaled Mahmoud Ramadan in Al-Dostour is tired of the fact that "for the past 25 years President Mubarak has extended the legitimacy of his rule by the fact that he was the one responsible for the air strike, and he marketed to the people he is the one responsible for the [6 October] victory even though to be fair and in truth we must recognise that it is a group of men and not just one man responsible for the victory. He goes on to wonder why the media "never talk about the person responsible for the ground attack or the naval attack as they talk day and night about the air strike?" Abbas Tarabili in Al-Wafd says, "the October anniversary this year comes at a time when people are sad and the tears are many and the worries are spreading through the ribs of Sinai from its north to its south. Blood is everywhere and fear controls everyone." Tarabili suggests we should move beyond strategies of collective punishment and that the time has come to make good on our promises of developing Sinai and bringing prosperity to its citizens. But at the end of the day, where is it all heading? Mohamed Abul-Ghar in Al-Arabi expresses anger and despair at the performance of the Egyptian state, a dire state of affairs he says is illustrated by the incident of the car race held on the Cairo Airport highway between a Qatari prince and an Egyptian, the result of which was the death of several bystanders and the prince's flight from the country. Abul-Ghar wonders where were the "security forces we see on every street, on every corner, whose cars spread across the city; thousands of policemen headed by dozens of generals and hundreds of officers who crowd in demonstrations of a few intellectuals and the rest who are busy monitoring telephone lines, computers, syndicates and newspapers?" They were not at the site of the race taking necessary action because the "security and life of citizens is not their concern and they do not care about protecting Egypt's pride while their only concern is the security of the regime." The long of the short of it is that Egypt "no longer has any status or position and it is not worth anything as long as it does not defend the life of its citizens that were murdered by the runaway prince."
