20110110
reuters

BEIRUT (Reuters) - After 30 years of President Hosni Mubarak's ultra-cautious rule, some of Egypt's 79 million people feel change is overdue -- even his claim to be the guarantor of stability has looked shaky since a January 1 attack on Christians.

But restive Egyptians may have to wait a bit longer. Most have known no other leader than the burly former air force commander who was catapulted to power when Islamist militants assassinated his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, in 1981.

"The biggest risk is fragmentation and rivalry within the ruling system, under the nominal leadership of an increasingly old Mubarak, like Tunisia in the 1980s under the late President Habib Bourguiba," said analyst Issandr el Amrani.

The 82-year-old Mubarak is widely tipped to run for a sixth six-year term in September's presidential election, health permitting. Constitutional rules ensure he would face no credible opponent. Speculation that he might make way for his son Gamal, a businessman-turned-politician, ebbs and flows.

Another term for Mubarak would keep alive uncertainty over who will eventually succeed him and defer any major shake-up in the way Egypt is governed, with the focus remaining on security, along with liberal economic policies aimed at high growth.

This well-tried authoritarian formula may satisfy investors impressed by Egypt's lively performance since economic reforms began in earnest in 2004, but not everyone is convinced it can contain accumulating tensions in the most populous Arab nation.

CHURCH BOMBING

Some of these were harshly exposed when a suspected al Qaeda-inspired suicide bomber killed up to 23 people outside a church in Alexandria on New Year's Day. The attack also blew a hole in an official myth that harmony reigns between majority Muslims and Christian Copts who form 10 percent of the populace.