Prominent independent MP Gamal Zahran accused Gamal Mubarak, head of the ruling party's influential Policies Secretariat, of "insulting" the Egyptian people by calling them "lazy" in a recent chat with young people on social-networking website Facebook. In an interpellation submitted to the People's Assembly on Wednesday, he requested that parliament's constitutional affairs committee convene to discuss the matter. Zahran also claimed that Gamal Mubarak, son of President Hosni Mubarak, was responsible for "covering up" government shortcomings by failing to address the global financial crisis -- which has so far cost some half million Egyptians their jobs -- and by turning a blind eye to institutional corruption at the state-run Social Fund for Development. "The president's son doesn't talk to the poor, only to the white-collared class," Zahran said, referring to the younger Mubarak's circle of wealthy, business-friendly associates. "He's promoting what he calls 'new thought,' which I only see as a policy of brutal capitalism that cannot possibly produce a coherent society." "You always see Gamal sitting with the ministers so as to give the impression that he's leading them," Zahran added. "Meanwhile, he talks as if he were the president, confirming speculation that he will inherit the presidency." "Were he not the president's son, he wouldn't be in this position," Zahran concluded. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
