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Kifaya: Mubarak sacked Mansour to give a warning message to his son; he is still the effective ruler of Egypt

Dr. Abdel-Halim Kandeel, the general coordinator of the Kefaya movement, said that Egypt's transport minister, Mohamed Lotfy Mansour, was forced to resign on Tuesday in a brief statement from the Presidency Hosni Mubarak revealed he had accepted Mansour's resignation, but without giving further details.

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Dr. Abdel-Halim Kandeel, the general coordinator of the Kefaya movement, said that Egypt's transport minister, Mohamed Lotfy Mansour, was forced to resign on Tuesday in a brief statement from the Presidency Hosni Mubarak revealed he had accepted Mansour's resignation, but without giving further details.

Kandil refer to a verbal defense which has been submitted by the National Democratic Party’s majority in the People's Assembly to Minister of Transport Mohamed Mansour as they rejected calls for him to step down on admitting "political responsibility" for the Ayat train accident which killed 18 and injured 36 on October 24. It was clearly indicated that the NDP Policies Secretary Gamal adopted a position to opposed the overthrow of the Minister as he hold full responsibility for the disaster.
In an explanation to "Al-Mesryoon”, Abdel-Halim Kandil believed that the  decision  made to remove Mansour, who was a close adviser to Gamal Mubarak from the post, confirms that President Mubarak is still firmly in control of the levers of power revealing a clear message to his son that Mubarak's hand is still strong at the helm.

He interpreted the dismissal as a warning message from President Hosni Mubarak to the decision-making and Policy Committee suggesting that he is still Egypt's absolute ruler and cannot be overlooked or cursorily bypassed. This is contrary to what political analysts believe in that Gamal Mubarak and his men would be "the virtual rulers of Egypt” after the president left the helm of the presidency to his son.

Abdel Halim Kandil noted that the decision to sack Mansour came in response to demands which urged him to step down by many of the political movements such as Kifaya and other opposition movements. It also came as a response to the initiative of Muhammad Hassanein Heikal and Emad El-Din Adeeb, a close friend of the president in his interview on Mubarak's safe exit.

He suggested that President Hosni Mubarak will issue a decision soon to overthrow the current government and form a new government free of technocrats, currently close to Gamal Mubarak, indicating that Mubarak himself made a statement in the National Democratic Party's 6th conference in which he emphasized he would be the only candidate of the ruling National Democratic Party in the forthcoming presidential elections. Mubarak’s visit to field force units belonging to the armed forces is perceived as a strong indication of an extension of Mubarak's term in office and not to the transfer of the presidency to his son.