'Mubarak, remain our leader'
2005-05-20 09:45
Cairo - Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has yet to announce whether he will run in September polls but his supporters have already staged a pre-election campaign to charm him back for a fifth straight term.
Mubarak should be "nationalised so as to eternally remain our leader", wrote a member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) on the president's 77th birthday earlier this month.
"We are your destiny and you are ours, we shall never part," Mohammed Madgi Morgan said in the government daily Al-Ahram.
A poster in Cairo's working class district of Sayeda Zeinab further eulogised the Egyptian leader: "Even unborn children in their mothers' wombs say yes to Mubarak".
Mubarak has said he will decide whether to run for a fifth six-year term after a key May 25 referendum on a constitutional amendment allowing for Egypt's first ever competitive presidential elections.
Since a 1952 coup which toppled the monarchy, all three Egyptian presidents have been nominated by a two-thirds majority of parliament — overwhelmingly dominated by the NDP — and then elected unopposed by referendum.
Most opposition parties, meanwhile, have announced their intention to boycott the referendum on the amendment as they argue its terms still largely favour NDP presidential candidates.
The butt of jokes
Beside weekly pro-reform demonstrations, some even calling for the president to step down after 24 years in office, the country has also been hit by a wave of anti-Mubarak jokes.
"The only condition for presenting one's candidacy is you must have 24 years of presidential experience," goes one of the jokes which is being widely circulated by mobile phone text messages.
Defamatory posters
In downtown Cairo's Bab al-Shireya neighbourhood, shops have strung up large banners, including one blasting local independent MP Ayman Nur who intends to run for the presidency.
"A nasty rat challenges a flying eagle," read one poster, referring to Mubarak's past as Egypt's air force commander in chief.
"A municipal employee threatened to have my shop closed if I didn't agree to hang a banner," said one storekeeper.
"He came with a bunch of ready slogans and asked shop owners to draw banners at their own expense. He later returned to make sure they were in place," he added on condition of anonymity.
A co-founder of the pro-reform left-wing opposition group Kefaya (Enough) said: "This just goes to show the regime is bankrupt and officials have understood people are not on their side.
United States President George W Bush pressed Egypt to make sure its upcoming presidential election was free and fair in talks on Wednesday with Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif, according to the White House.