Major news in Lebanon on June 20: Mubarak’s final chapter

Top news in <The Daily Star>: Mubarak’s final chapter

Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was being kept alive by life support after he was rushed from prison to a military one in a rapidly worsening condition, officials said.

The 84-year-old ousted leader’s health crisis added a new element of uncertainty just as a potentially explosive fight opened over who will succeed him.The state news agency MENA said Mubarak was “clinically dead” when he arrived at the hospital and that doctors used a defibrillator on him several times. It initially said the efforts were not successful.

But the official said Mubarak was put on life support. He had no further details on his condition. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

The developments add further layers to what is threatening to become a new chapter of unrest and political power struggles in Egypt, 16 months after Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising demanding democracy. Egyptians were uncertain about Mubarak’s fate, about who will succeed him and about whether his successor will have any power.

The campaign of Mubarak’s former prime minister, Ahmad Shafiq, said Tuesday he has won Egypt’s presidential election, countering the Muslim Brotherhood’s claim of victory for its candidate, Mohammad Mursi.

The election commission is to announce the official results Thursday and no matter who it names as victor, his rival is likely to reject the result as a fraud. If Shafiq is declared winner in particular, it could spark an explosive backlash from the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful political group, is already escalating its challenge against the ruling military over the generals’ move this week to give themselves overwhelming authority over the next president. Some 50,000 protesters, mostly Islamists, massed in Cairo’s Tahrir

Square Tuesday evening chanting slogans in support of Mursi and denouncing the generals’ power grab.

The health crisis of Mubarak, who is serving a life prison sentence, is yet one more thing to stoke the heat.

Moving Mubarak out of prison is likely to further infuriate many in the public. Many Egyptians have been skeptical of earlier reports that his health was worsening since he was put in prison on June 2, believing the reports were just a pretext to move him to another facility. There is a widespread suspicion that security and military officials sympathetic to their old boss are giving him preferential treatment.

Details of the crisis were still sketchy. Earlier the news agency and officials said that while at the Torah Prison hospital he suffered a “fast deterioration of his health.” His heart stopped beating until he was revived by defibrillation, then he suffered a stroke.

At that point, he was moved from the prison hospital to Maadi military hospital – notably the same one where turn to page 10from page 1his predecessor Anwar Sadat was declared dead more than 30 years ago after being gunned down by Islamic militants.

Mubarak has been serving a life sentence at Cairo’s Torah Prison for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the 18-day uprising against his rule last year. The verdict against him has already been a spark for protests – thousands massed in Tahrir when the court acquitted him and his sons on separate corruption charges and cleared several top security chiefs on the protester killings.

The multiple disputes have turned a moment that was once anticipated by some as a landmark in Egypt’s post-Mubarak transition – the election of the first civilian president in 60 years – into a potentially destabilizing snarl.

Shafiq’s campaign spokesman, Ahmad Sarhan, told a news conference that Shafiq won 51.5 percent of the vote and that Mursi’s claim of victory was “false.”

“Gen. Ahmad Shafiq is the next president of Egypt,” said Sarhan. He said Shafiq won some 500,000 votes more than Mursi, of the Brotherhood.

The Shafiq campaign’s claim came just hours after Mursi’s campaign repeated their claims of victory, saying Mursi had won 52 percent of the vote compared to Shafiq’s 48.

news@theasian.asia