Hosni Mubarak can’t be amused.
With the President of Egypt immersed in the authorship of his country’s future after his interminable term has run its course, growing talk of a serious candidacy from Mohamed ElBaradei is as unsettling as a visit from Secretary of State Clinton.
A few months ago President Mubarak’s routine was much more simple. He spent his days launching trial balloons of his ill-equipped son Gamal’s ill-fated Presidential ambitions, tempering these at times with oblique references to the contributions of intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and, for good measure, even suggesting he may run once again himself.
But if the 2011 elections include ElBaradei’s name on the ballot as the candidate of the New Wafd Party, the ability of Hosni Mubark not only to control the speculative agenda, but to influence the electoral outcome, has the potential to be dismantled.
Today, this is an unlikely scenario.
Dr. ElBaradei has not publicly stated his interest in a candidacy. He is not a member of the New Wafd Party. He is stepping down as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with the agency in 2005, he gave away his winnings to pay for the construction of orphanages in Cairo.
But ElBaradei’s credentials, international prestige and domestic popularity cannot mask a historical shortcoming. He is not a member of the Egyptian military. Rather he is on the outside of the military looking in… his father, a former leader of the Egyptian Bar Association, did not make any friends with the Nasser regime. For the power of the military to evaporate sufficiently for ElBaradei to assume the presidency would be remarkable.
How strong is ElBaradei’s popular support? Difficult to determine. Probably nowhere near strong enough to rebuff the military.
But the possibilities are intriguing. An ElBaradei candidacy, unlikely as it seems today, has the potential to turn much of Egyptian’s internal shame, disgust and complacency into pride, activism, and reform.
Omar Suleiman would be much more adept at inheriting the existing apparatus of the dictatorship. He would be better cast as a footnoted follow up act to the Mubarak regime. Because of his age, he would probably not hold power for long, and it may be that ElBaradei will bide his time and run for the Presidency after Suleiman has served a term.
And there is always the unfortunate question of Gamal Mubarak, and whether or not his father will give his boy the keys.
Whatever the case, control of the speculative agenda is no longer entirely in the President’s withered old hands.
