EGYPT - Mubarak Running For 5th Term.

Mubarak, now 77, will run in the September presidential elections seeking a fifth consecutive term in office and will appoint a vice president. Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad on June 16 said Mubarak will announce his candidacy in a TV speech after the lower house of parliament passes the new electoral law. Awad said: "This will be Mubarak's last term. He wants a free, democratic and fair election. He wants to be remembered as the one who did this...these changes will be his legacy".

During 24 years in office, Mubarak has never appointed a vice-president - the post which brought both Mubarak and his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, to the presidency. The four presidents since the monarchy was overthrown in 1952 have all come from the military. Analysts say any new president would find it hard to govern without military consent.

The man most cited as a possible vice-president is Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief who is from the military. (Suleiman met this week with Palestinian officials before heading to Israel where met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to discuss Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip due to start later this year).

In the last four presidential referenda, the government has released figures showing more than 90% support. Awad was on June 16 quoted as saying: "President Mubarak would be happy to be re-elected with only 65%".

Mubarak's resistance to naming a vice-president had raised anxiety over the regime's future stability and fuelled speculation that Mubarak was planning for his son Gamal to succeed him. Concerns over the president's health emerged in November 2003 when he was forced to cut short a speech to parliament.

Some analysts say Suleiman, 69, has the best chance of securing the vice- president's job and will have the support of the military. But others say Mubarak is still determined to name a civilian and wants his legacy to be that of the leader who shifted power away from the military.

Gamal Mubarak, a 42-year-old ex-banker, has raised his profile in recent years by championing reforms within the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). His rising influence was confirmed when a group of reformists close to him were appointed to the cabinet last year to lead a programme of economic restructuring.

Last week Gamal strongly defended the constitutional amendment allowing for a multi-candidate presidential election, insisting this was part of the regime's determined efforts to promote political reforms. He said the shift to direct election should put to rest speculation that his father was planning for a family succession. Asked whether he step which they described as harboured presidential ambitions, he said: "At the moment, I don't".

Democratic Evolution: In recent months Madeleine K. Albright, secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, and Vin Weber, a former Republican representative from Minnesota and now chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, co-chaired a task force of experts organised by the Council on Foreign Relations to formulate recommendations for US policy. Their report, "In Support of Arab Democracy: Why and How", argues that if Arabs are able to express their grievances freely and peacefully, they are less likely to turn to extreme measures and more likely to build open and prosperous societies.

In a joint article published on June 11, Albright (now principal of The Albright Group LLC) and Weber said the Bush administration should beware of crediting Arab leaders who engage in a pretense of democratic reform while omitting the substance. They described Mubarak's request for a multi-candidate presidential election as a "seemingly positive" step. But they said the system he was recommending "would make it virtually impossible for truly independent parties to participate". They added: "Sham democracy should be exposed for what it is".

Albright and Weber said Arab regimes "will...establish their own rules for democratic participation". But they said to the extent the US can influence that process, "it should be in the direction of openness". They stressed: "Washington should support the participation of any group or party that has made a credible commitment to abide by the rules of democracy, including nonviolence and respect for constitutional procedures".

Albright and Weber argued in favour of including Islamist parties in the political process in Egypt. They wrote: "It would be a mistake to exclude Islamist parties on the assumption that they are inherently undemocratic or prone to violence. The best way to marginalize violent extremists is to make room for as broad a range of nonviolent perspectives as possible". Albright and Weber were implying that Mubarak should give the Muslim Brotherhood a chance to prove itself that it would uphold the democratic process.

The Bush administration is working on democratic change in the Arab world. The question is how best to go about that process. Albright and Weber said: "If we push too hard, we may add to the perception that we are trying to impose our will. If we fail to push hard enough, we may contribute to the view that America supports freedom for everyone except Arabs. To succeed, we must find a balance that combines a firm commitment to democratic principles and an understanding of the complexities of the Arab world... And in promoting democratic institutions in Arab countries, we should bear in mind that sudden, traumatic change is neither necessary nor desirable. Our goal should be to encourage democratic evolution, not revolution".

Given the Arab world's diversity, Albright and Weber said, "a country-by-country approach is required, but that approach should be based in every case on support for human rights and the fundamentals of representative government". To assess progress, they said, Washington should encourage Arab leaders to develop and make public "pathways to reform" to guide the expectations of their citizens and "create benchmarks against which the pace of change can be measured". At the same time, the US "should emphasize the importance of minority representation".

Albright and Weber saw in the current constitutional debate in Iraq a case study of this challenge: "The governing coalition has legitimacy because of the electoral support it received, but it will not be able to govern effectively unless minorities feel secure. The United States is often portrayed unfairly in the Arab media. The solution is not to look for ways to pressure or punish Arab journalists but rather to support the expansion of independent media outlets. At the same time, US public diplomacy should place new emphasis on democratic reform. America's Arabic-language satellite channel, Al Hurra, should include C-SPAN-style coverage of legislative hearings and political rallies in the United States and other democratic countries. Arabs should be exposed to the spectacle of free political systems in action, including the questioning of senior leaders by public representatives and the press. Building democracy requires political will, but also a good deal of technical skill. While Arabs will have to provide the former, the United States and other democratic societies should be generous in sharing their expertise in such areas as improving education, fighting corruption, promoting investment and removing barriers to trade".

Albright and Weber went on to say: "Arab leaders should know that progress toward democracy will have favorable consequences for their relations with the United States and that the reverse is also true. Countries moving toward democracy should receive special consideration on such matters as trade and aid, while Washington should distance itself from governments that refuse over time to recognize the rights of their citizens... The difference between democracy and the status quo is that decisions will flow from the many, not just the few. This does not guarantee that we will agree with those decisions or that they will be the right ones, only that they will be legitimate. That is enough".

Women In Egypt Have Had Enough: If the authorities in Egypt could not find a wanted man, they might take their wives and daughters into custody. But a recent attack on a small group of women, in which they were groped and assaulted by men chanting support for the ruling NDP, while the police stood by and watched, has helped to unify and motivate various groups calling for a more open and democratic government.

The images of women being groped and beaten have helped unite groups as diverse as the Muslim Brotherhood and the left-leaning Centre for Socialist Studies in their calls for change. The attacks have inspired many new people to become politically active, in general creating a backlash which has taken the government by surprise. The New York Times on June 10 quoted Kamal Khalil, director of the Centre for Socialist Studies, as saying: "At least now there is dialogue and meetings between us as Communists and the Muslim Brotherhood. We share our visions and there is a kind of co-ordination - of course the event, assaults of Wednesday the 25th [of May], helped - we can't deny this".

Those May assaults seem to have jump-started the women's movement in Cairo. It is one in which women have moved to take the lead in a political battle for empowerment. "We are opening a real popular female movement", said Ghane El-Halafawy, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, speaking on June 9 at a forum called "The Street is Ours", organised by women who were attacked. It had been less than a year since the once unthinkable began to occur in Egypt's political life: Groups of people started taking to the streets criticising Mubarak, a line few had been willing to cross before. The movement called itself "kifaya" (enough). Its goal was to stop Mubarak from another term as president.

On May 25, the day of a scheduled referendum to amend the constitution, a small group of protesters met in central Cairo, saying the referendum was no more than a fig leaf. They were greeted by riot policemen, undercover security agents and uniformed officers. Groups of men who arrived in buses were allowed, with police standing by, to attack and beat female protesters. The police kept female protesters cordoned in, while the men beat them. While the violence made for national news in Cairo, the images and stories of women whose clothes were torn and bodies groped caused the greatest backlash against the government.

The NDP condemned the attacks. Government supporters say there was no intent to intimidate women. "That was a crime, no doubt about it", said NDP member Abdul Moneim Said, who heads Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. He added: "It was denounced by people from the NDP as well as from the outside... It is now under investigation. But Said said whatever the cause, it helped inspire those who had taken to the streets.

Since the attacks, newspapers have reported on the event with headlines like "The Scandal", which appeared recently in Al-Khamis, an independent weekly newspaper. There was a call for a national day of mourning, there was a sit-in, protesters began calling that day Black Wednesday and crowds began to grow as protests became more regular.

On June 9, several hundred people stood at the foot of the mausoleum for Saad Zaghoul, a temple in central Cairo which honours the nationalist former prime minister who is a symbol of resistance against the British. As the crowds held candles and shouted "Kifaya, enough we've reached the end", an army of security agents stood at the ready, riot police officers in full black uniforms watched quietly.

Raba' Fahmy, a female lawyer who was groped during the attacks, stood in the back of the crowd, a candle in her right hand. The NYT quoted Sumaya Ahmad, 26, a female accountant, as telling Ms Fahmy: "I came here after I saw you in the papers. I am very provoked by what happened. I wasn't intimidated by what happened on Wednesday [May 25]; it encouraged me because we must assert the rights of those people who were beaten and humiliated".

The protest had a festive feel as some demonstrators taunted the security agents, who stood by quietly. When one of the security chiefs approached the crowd and said it was time to go, a group shouted in his face. He walked away slowly. Ms Fahmy said: "Overnight we have become national symbols".

On June 8, about 350 people filled a conference room at the Journalists' Syndicate. At the forum, attended by an equal number of men and women, those who spoke covered the diversity of Egypt, from a poor farmer to a university professor, to a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their anger poured out a list of grievances, including being groped regularly on buses, and calls for ending emergency laws enacted after the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1982.