Who will succeed Mubarak?

For the fourteenth day in a row, thousands of protesters have been calling for the departure of President Hosni Mubarak, but he refuses to do so before the elections that should be held in September.

That process is difficult to stop and in Egypt many questions are still waiting to be answered. Although representatives of the opposition talked over the weekend with representatives of the government, no progress was made because the government refuses to fulfill their request to implement the reform of the entire political system.

Mubarak (82), who came to the head of the state in October 1981, after the assassination of Anwar al-Sadat, until now was thinking of running for the head of state again, even though he was getting sick in his years.

Possible heirs

As reported by Tanjug, two people are most often mentioned as possible successors to Mubarak, the first - the former director of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, who, as soon as the unrest in Egypt began, established himself as the leader of the opposition, although he does not have a political party behind him, nor has he lived in country and another, Amr Mohamed Musa, an Egyptian diplomat who has been the general secretary of the Arab League since 2001.

Mohamed ElBaradei

Mubarak's regime immediately understood where the dangerous winds were blowing from and the state media is already calling ElBaradei a "traitor" and comparing his call for political reforms to an attempt at a "constitutional coup".

Due to the fact that he lived and worked in the world for decades, from New York to Geneva, many claim that he has not yet taken deep roots in the people, he does not even have a political party behind him. Aware of this, he recently founded the movement National Alliance for Democratic Change.

Amr Mohamed Musa

Those familiar with the situation in Egypt say, and Tanjug reports, that Amr Musa, the longtime head of diplomacy, who in 2004, when his supporters collected tens of thousands of signatures, refused to run for president in the elections held on 12 months later.

Moussa, however, recently stated that he has changed his mind and may run for election in 2011. He has, meanwhile, met with ElBaradei and is believed to have discussed implementing constitutional reforms that would allow for a transparent electoral process.

Omar Suleiman

As a possible successor, Omar Sulejman (74) is also mentioned, whom Mubarak, when he realized that his ship was beginning to sink, appointed him as the vice president of the country, a position that did not even exist until now. That soldier and policeman, the head of the intelligence services, is obviously a man trusted by the current government. Speculations can be heard in Cairo that he could succeed the previous "Pharaoh" who ruled Egypt for three decades.

"No, it was Mubarak II," say Egyptian groups that fight for human rights and emphasize that the new head of state should be elected in democratic elections.

Muslim Brotherhood

The previous persecution of opponents in Egypt brought the Muslim Brotherhood back to the public scene, which now controls as many as a fifth of the parliamentary mandates through independent candidates, even though the group is formally banned. For the first time, its representatives took part in talks on cutting the complicated political knot in Egypt.

"We are not interested in the position of the president of Egypt," one of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed al Beltagi, said in a statement to "Al Jazeera" TV. At the same time, he expressed the hope that this Islamist movement will soon be recognized as a political party.

Those who follow the events in Egypt do not rule out that the Muslim Brotherhood will, nevertheless, put forward their candidate for the head of state, although they do not reveal who it might be.

Who will succeed Mubarak?

At this time, it is only certain who it will not be. Until the protests that rocked Egypt, Mubarak's son Gamal, who was already one of the leaders of the ruling party, was mentioned as the sure successor of Mubarak. But he is no longer in the game. The media even claim that he is not even in the country, that he fled abroad with the money.

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