CAIRO: Again, Egypt is seeing more and more young people getting involved in politics. There are dozens of pro-Gamal Muabrak groups online, dozens against, so why not have another? The Youth Against the Bequeathing of Power will launch its first founding conference on November 4, at the former headquarters of the al-Ghad (Tomorrow) Party in downtown, Cairo.

The movement says it aims at rejecting Gamal Mubarak and him taking over the presidency after his father, current Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, leaves his helm. The younger Mubarak, who is the National Democratic Party’s Policies Committee Secretary-General, has repeatedly denied any intention for running for president, but most observers and opposition leaders believe he will be the country’s next leader if action is not taken.

Karim al-Sha’er, one of the founders of the movement, told al-Youm al-Saba’a that the movement targets the Egyptian street through organizing street protests to express their “rejection of the inheritance of power to the Egyptian President’s son and expressing their rejection to Mubarak staying in power for another term.” He added that the young people involved in the campaign “want a ‘free’ Egypt, which would be ruled by an elected president who is chosen by the free will of the people away from fraudulent elections.”

He also called for creating similar fronts to reject the inheritance, such as “lawyers against the succession” and “human rights activists against succession,” noting that “youth against the succession is an independent movement stemming from the Egyptian campaign against the succession of Gamal Mubarak” led by Ayman Nour and other prominent leaders, who launched their campaign to much media fanfare on October 14.

(see also “Egypt’s opposition united against common foe”)

In related news, the Preparatory Committee for the Campaign “Egyptians against inheritance” held its second meeting on Monday, led by Dr. Hassan Nafaa, at the house of Mohammed Abdul Quddus, head of the Freedoms Committee at the Press Syndicate.

The second meeting involved a number of founders, including Ayman Nour, Hamdein Sabahy of the Karama Party, Abdel Halim Kandil, General Coordinator of Kefaya and Mohamed Anwar Sadat, founder of the Reform and Development Party, in addition to Mohamed Beltagy, the Secretary-General of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Parliamentary bloc in the People’s Assembly, who was representing the group at the meeting.

**reporting by Mohamed Abdel Salam

BM