Comments on the presidential referendum in the fall made the biggest splash, writes Dina Ezzat It was a good week for the papers with most dailies and weeklies publishing a wide range of Q&As with policy-makers and other prominent national figures. Many interviews centred on the most debated matter on the home front: the next presidential referendum due to take place in autumn. Major statements on the referendum appeared in the vast majority of publications, including those made by Minister of Interior Habib El-Adli to a group of senior correspondents who accompanied him to Tunis to cover an Arab interior ministers meeting. Appearing mostly in the form of Q&A both in the national and opposition press, El-Adli's statements squashed rumours of the potential nomination of Gamal Mubarak for the post of president. El-Adli also provided unequivocal governmental affirmation that President Hosni Mubarak will be renominated by the ruling party for a fifth term in office. Stating that his ministry was ready for the referendum, El-Adli made it crystal clear that no foreign observers would be allowed to monitor the voting process. "We are very confident. We have credibility," El-Adli told Ahmed Moussa, Al-Ahram 's senior correspondent to the Ministry of Interior. He added that Egypt can be proud of the fact that "it is the only country in the world that has full judiciary supervision over the entire electoral process." In interviews and statements published by other publications with El-Adli, the minister denounced accusations directed against his ministry of fabricating voter lists to include fictitious names -- often of deceased citizens -- to affect the outcome of the ballot box in accordance with the government's desire. It is the voter who must be blamed for any inaccuracies on the voting list, El-Adli charged. If citizens would make it a point to register themselves promptly, then such lists would be updated, he added. In all events, it is the next legislative elections rather than the presidential referendum that El- Adli expected would stir up much debate. "I think the next parliamentary elections will be really hot this time because people have so many expectations of it," he told Al-Ahram. El-Adli was by no means the only state official affirming the intention of the president to run for a new term in office. In the mouthpiece of the Nasserist Party, Al-Arabi on Sunday, Kamal El-Shazli, deputy secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), also said, loud and clear, that "it is an honour for the NDP to nominate President Mubarak for a new term in office for all that he has given to the nation during his leadership. We nominate him because we really hope for more in the interest of all of us." Interviews with officials were not only meant to assert the ruling National Democratic Party's intention to seek another term in office for President Mubarak; they also appeared aimed at challenging five individuals, including controversial Egyptian/ American sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim, equally controversial feminist writer Nawal Saadawi and prominent businessman Mohamed Farid Khamis. In the weekly magazine Rose El-Youssef, NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif and Parliamentary Speaker Fathi Sorour spoke out against the intentions of those who want to contest the presidency -- even if only in theory, as the candidates themselves admit. "We all know that if someone is applying for an ordinary job they have to have impressive CVs. So what do we expect of someone who is running for president?" Sorour asked. El-Sherif offered a more complicated analysis of the situation. "If we assume that there are several presidential candidates then we could face a situation where some of them could attempt to use businessmen to influence the outcome or, in a worst case scenario, use the pressure of a foreign country." In any country, the members of the ruling party and its government members will unequivocally vouch for their own candidate. But what was odd was for an veteran opposition leader, and certainly left-wing icon Khaled Mohieddin to more or less take the very same line. "It is not just anyone who can nominate himself for president..." Mohieddin said. According to a prominent politician whom Rose El-Youssef described as "the legendary leader of Al-Tagammu Party", "it is in the national interest of Egypt that the selection of the president should be through a referendum." Mohieddin praised President Mubarak for not naming a vice-president. "This is one of the most positive elements of Mubarak's rule," he stated. Mohieddin also said that the nation should not react with inhibition on the issue of Gamal Mubarak's supposed interest in pursuing the presidency. "He has every right to run along with other candidates and we have the right to judge his performance since he is not above accountability," he said. Whereas Mohieddin sees Gamal Mubarak's possible candidacy as being associated with the political fortunes of the president himself, other left- wing figures showed less sympathy towards the prospects of the political career of Mubarak's son. No matter how many times the government denies all plans for the succession of Gamal Mubarak, argued Professor Abdel-Azim Anis in an interview with Al-Arabi, it is obvious that Gamal Mubarak is being groomed for the job. But for Anis, the issue of Gamal Mubarak is not the core concern of the political future of the nation. It is political and other forms of corruption that is worrying Anis most. "We are living in an age of the corrupt state," Anis said. As Anis sees it, the blame for the current situation does not only lie with the government but also the opposition. "There is a real failure on the part of the political opposition to mobilise the masses behind it... The opposition does not want to get into a confrontation with the regime; it somehow fears it," Anis said. He warned that "those who think that public opinion is dead" are seriously mistaken. "The anger of the masses will suddenly be expressed," he added. In another interview run by Al-Arabi, a supposed presidential candidate, Nawal El-Saadawi, said her objective to run for the top job in the country was not to actually get the post but to break taboos and promote an agenda of democracy. "I never thought about doing this but some of my students told me that I should do it to break the locks of closed doors... I want all restrictions imposed on political parties and professional syndicates to be removed... I have no quarrel with having religious- based political parties... I want a policy of confrontation with Israel and the US," Saadawi said. Other national worries, ranging from economic ailments to Muslim-Copt co-existance, were addressed in interviews that appeared this week were with Investment Minister Mohieddin, Maher Abdel-Wahed, the general prosecutor and Pope Shenouda. The three talked to the weekly Sawt Al- Umma, the weekly Al-Osbou and Al-Wafd. Mohieddin admitted there was no accurate data on investment-related matters. Abdel-Wahed said it was not up to him to support Wafaa Costantine, the wife of the priest who allegedly converted to Islam, willingly and then had to revert back to Christianity due to family and society pressure. Costantine, Abdel-Wahed argued, "failed to meet the full legal procedures of converts". In two interviews in Al-Osbou and Al-Wafd Pope Shenouda alluded that it had not been easy for him to discuss Coptic concerns with the government "because it is only useful for someone to talk if one knows that there is someone who is really listening at the receiving end." Bottom Lines "We are very confident about ourselves. We have credibility." Habib El-Adli to Al-Ahram "I never thought about doing this but some of my students told me that I should do it to break the locks of closed doors." Nawal El-Saadawi to Al-Arabi
