Dina Ezzat reports on the fall out from the Mubarak-era spy chief's bid to become president Twenty minutes before the Presidential Elections Commission (PEC) shut down its doors and Omar Suleiman appeared. The 77-year-old who for two decades served Mubarak as head of intelligence was there to hand in his nomination forms and become the 23rd presidential candidate. Suleiman's arrival at the Heliopolis PEC headquarters was different to that of the 22 other candidates. He arrived surrounded by military police vehicles, and with military police chief Hamdi Badeen in tow to oversee his entry into the committee's headquarters. According to one PEC administrator Badeen was joined by a member of the ruling Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) and together they escorted Suleiman to the registration bureau. Another government source present on Monday said that the two men issued orders that Suleiman's aides were to be admitted after the 2pm deadline for nominations. Candidates are required to support their nomination application with the written approval of either 30 MPs or 30,000 citizens. "Suleiman arrived with 22,000 signatures," revealed the source. "He said that the people bringing the remainder were stuck in a traffic jam." Mubarak's former intelligence chief and only vice president eventually announced that he had submitted the names of 40,000 supporters. Rumours that Suleiman would join the presidential race had been circulating for a while. Late last week, two weeks after a telling a handful of sympathisers at a Heliopolis mosque that he would join the race if he could secure the required support, he issued a statement saying he would not be running after all. Now he is. On 10 February 2011 protesters in Tahrir Square responded to Mubarak's announcement that he was delegating all his powers to his newly appointed vice president and General Intelligence chief with chants of "No, Suleiman, no". News that Suleiman now hopes to step into the shoes of his former boss immediately provoked calls for a mass demonstration. And discussions are underway among leading presidential candidates to form an anti-Suleiman ticket. "It is an insult that Mubarak's closest associate thinks he can run. It is as if nothing happened, that there was no revolution to topple Mubarak," says veteran anti-Mubarak campaigner George Ishak. "Whoever the people are advising Suleiman, they obviously think they can stifle the revolution once and for all. But I have news for them. The revolution is here to stay. We will not allow Suleiman to come to power." Ishak makes no secret of his antipathy to the Islamist forces that have come to dominate the immediate post-Mubarak period. But the rise of political Islam, he says, cannot be used to justify anyone supporting Mubarak's former henchman. "We are going to forge a ticket with a strong candidate as president and with two other candidates to serve as his deputies." Unfortunately, increasing numbers of human rights activists are coming to question whether the results finally announced by the PEC -- a body whose decisions cannot be appealed -- will actually reflect the way people voted. Well before Suleiman nominated himself activist Ghada Chahbandar was worried about vote- rigging. Now Suleiman -- perceived by many to be SCAF's preferred candidate -- is standing, many others have come to share her concern. "SCAF will always find a way to support its candidate," says political activist Khaled Abdel-Hamid. SCAF has been keen to publicly distance itself from Suleiman, issuing several statements since his nomination to the effect that the generals are not supporting any candidate and will work only to ensure that elections are free and fair. Such assurances, says Chahbandar, are nonsense, given the obstacles being placed in front of civil society organisations seeking to monitor the presidential poll, and the fact that the SCAF appointed PEC's decisions are final. The draft law presented by MP Essam Sultan that seeks to prevent key figures from the Mubarak regime from standing in presidential elections targets both Suleiman, appointed by Mubarak as his vice president, and Ahmed Shafik, another Mubarak confidant and his last prime minister. Shafik, according to a member of his campaign team, is already considering withdrawing from the race in support of Suleiman. Sensitive to growing speculation over its role in the Suleiman nomination, SCAF on Tuesday issued a statement denying that it was opposed to the adoption of the Sultan bill of which SCAF's head -- and Egypt's de facto ruler -- must approve to become law. For political activists who feel insulted by the Suleiman nomination the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If SCAF expects the public to accept its reassurances, they say, it must approve the draft law. Suleiman, say his opponents, was not just a key member of a regime that survived on corruption, cronyism and the systemic abuse of human rights, he was also central to plans to promote Gamal Mubarak as his father's successor. For Ishak, Abdel-Hamid and others, Suleiman's occupancy of the president's office would mean that the succession scenario they opposed had not been defeated but modified. Less than two hours after Suleiman's nomination was registered Muslim Brotherhood candidate Khairat El-Shater gave his first press conference. If Suleiman to became president, he said, "it would mean the Mubarak regime had been regenerated in a new format". "When the people kicked out Mubarak, they also kicked out Suleiman." El-Shater warned that Suleiman's election would see mass demonstrations across the country. Islamist candidates Hazem Abu Ismail and Mohamed Selim Al-Awwa have also warned that the nomination of Mubarak's spy chief is "a blunder" while Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh characterised it as an insult to the 25 January Revolution. Whether Suleiman has a natural constituency is unclear, though his associates claim he is receiving support from across the social spectrum. "I hate it that people say Suleiman is the candidate of Heliopolis," says one resident of the suburb as she heads towards Mar Girgis Church in Heliopolis Square for the Palm Sunday service. "When Heliopolis elected a representative in parliament it elected Amr Hamzawi, who was part of the revolution and had nothing to do with the Mubarak regime." "I hate it even more when I hear people say he will be supported by Copts. Why would the Copts of Egypt support this man? Were we not part of the revolution?" Suleiman himself claims a broad base of support, and rejects allegations that his candidacy is an attempt to resurrect the Mubarak regime. "Nobody can make time go backward," says the former president's strongman.
