Saad Eddin Ibrahim, my former university professor and the “dissident” I dislike the most, has declared his support for Gamal Mubarak’s presidential candidacy.
I recall it was in 2002, when I worked for the Cairo Times, at the same time when Jimmi had started already to create some political buzz with his repeated public appearances with daddy at NDP and govt events. Saad was just fresh out of jail. Issandr went to interview him in his home, and when he came back to the office, he told me in shock that following the interview, he was chatting with Saad and the latter told him he would not mind seeing Gamal Mubarak as a successor to his dad and that the young Mubarak is someone he (Saad) can work with.
This was not part of the interview published then. And in all cases the Mubaraks were still a taboo then for both the private and state media. So that chat wasn’t published.
To cut a long story short, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, even at the height of his so called “conflict with the regime” is an opportunist, and has always been an opportunist, unrepentant normalizer with Israel, and an American lackey who embraced wholeheartedly the Bush doctrine. His latest public move to declare his support for Gamal Mubarak’s nomination should not come as a surprise.