Anne Penketh: Mubarak's rule all but over

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Photo /Bloomberg.

Amid all the uncertainties in Egypt, one thing seems clear: the regime of President Hosni Mubarak is in its death throes.

He may not leave office today - after the Egyptian opposition scheduled a "million man" nationwide protest - or tomorrow, but it is generally recognised here that his 30-year ironclad rule is coming to an end.

Egyptian protesters, who have defied the curfew every day, will not stop until he is gone. It is the one demand on which every single Egyptian unites. As one insider put it: "It's personal. Almost everybody has suffered under Mubarak. They want him and his confederacy of sycophants to go."

"Game Over" was one of the placards held up in Tahrir Square, where tens of thousands of people again gathered on a working day to call for the president's departure. There were women and children, families, hospital workers, actors, students, Cairenes from all walks of life. Some posed for pictures raising V for Victory signs in front of army tanks as the tensions of previous days seemed to evaporate. But a watchful military helicopter circled overhead.

Police, who had vanished on the orders of the interior minister after last week's mass protest which expressed the determination of a nation, returned to man checkpoints. But as darkness fell, bands of local people still patrolled their neighbourhoods armed with sticks and other weapons in case the looters return. As civil society reacted to the dramatic events of the last seven days, the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Council demanded that those responsible for the removal of the police should be put on trial. The perception of most people here is that the decision to remove the security forces - including from outside the prisons which allowed criminals to escape - was a deliberate act intended to warn Egyptians of the consequences of their unprecedented rejection of the "pharaoh".

As I sat in the office of the council's executive director, Mohamed Shaker, in the affluent suburb of Maadi, I heard another of the heart-rending tales that have broken so many Egyptians' lives in recent days. One of his employees told him that his father, a truck driver, had been attacked by robbers who stole his goods and beat him so badly that he had to be taken to hospital.

In its statement, Shaker's think tank recognised that change is needed in Egypt and pointed to the future: a transitional government, a new constitution, the election of a parliament and then a new president who would emerge from a constitutionally sound process rather than that laid down by the discredited Mubarak Government.

The former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has sought to promote himself as a figurehead who could lead a transitional government, although he suffered a setback after the Muslim Brotherhood denied his claim that he would speak for them in negotiations with the Government. It is an early sign that the opposition is divided - a factor which could be exploited by the authorities. Egyptian analysts point out that in any case it is unlikely that ElBaradei has the support of the army, the ultimate arbiter.

The Government's game plan seems to be to hope that by naming a new government - a replacement for the hated interior minister has been appointed already - and by allowing the protests to continue, it will take the sting out of the demonstration and Vice-President Omar Suleiman can begin preparing for the post-Mubarak era. That would appear to be the hope of the United States, where officials respect the urbane and sophisticated Suleiman. But his close association with Mubarak could prove the general's undoing.

Washington has all but given up on Mubarak. Statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the weekend were the strongest so far by the Administration which cannot openly call on Mubarak to go. But Clinton has taken pains to praise the president - a family friend - for his contribution to the Middle East peace and international security. So the signs are that the US and other governments are looking for a dignified exit for Mubarak.

Naturally, all governments are concerned to avoid an implosion of the regime which could create chaos in an already explosive region where the Islamists of Hamas - originally a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood - rule in neighbouring Gaza. The giant task for the future will be to harness Egypt's secular and religious opposition, which came together in support of this popular uprising, to rebuild a broken nation.