The son flatly denies he is in the running to succeed his father. Asked about inheriting power, he answered sharply, saying, "Clearly, we are against it." And while Egypt's past three presidents -- Gamal Abdul Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Mubarak -- came from the ranks of the military, Gamal Mubarak, 41, worked as an investment banker in London and spent several years with Bank of America before setting up his own investment firm, Medinvest Associates.
Nevertheless, during a 2003 trip to the United States, he met with Vice President Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. A recent cabinet shuffle put several of his associates into office and gave rise to theories that Gamal Mubarak is, in effect, serving as his father's vice president.
Complaints led to changes on a billboard in Cairo that showed the president's son, Gamal Mubarak, with an Olympic gold medalist.
(Amr Nabil -- AP)
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The newcomers are young and Western-oriented. One, Mahmoud Mohieddin, 39, studied in Britain and heads a new Investment Ministry. Another, Rachid Mohammed Rachid, 49, studied management at Stanford, MIT and Harvard.
At this week's party conference, Gamal Mubarak served as master of ceremonies. On Tuesday, he laid out the conference agenda in a 40-minute speech. State television, which broadcast several sessions, repeatedly trained cameras on him as he sat in the audience leafing through papers.
Naguib, the 20th March Movement founder, said Egypt's various coalitions will hold demonstrations and petition drives to derail Hosni Mubarak's continuation in power.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned from politics but regarded as the country's most influential opposition organization, has joined in the calls for reform.
"We are willing to help push the wheel of reform," said Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the group's leader. "In this dictatorship, there can be no change unless the regime wants it."
Even legal parties that hold seats in parliament are chafing under the domination of Mubarak and the National Democratic Party. "Reform won't happen now, but that doesn't mean we stop trying," said Rifat Said, who heads the leftist Tagammu party. "We have no weapons, so we have to move slowly."
