How Hosni Was Shown the Door

On Thursday the world watched a defiant Hosni Mubarak vowing to stay on as president until September.   On Friday morning Mubarak's vice president Omar Suleiman went on Egyptian TV to nervously announce the his boss had quit and transferred power to the Egyptian military.

History shows that leaders can retire or they can reluctantly negotiate resignation or they can be forced out.   It was pretty clear that Hosni didn't choose voluntary retirement but was it a negotiated resignation or was he toppled?

The first sign that Mubarak was driven from office came a day after his resignation when it was announced that senior cabinet ministers had been forbidden to leave the country.  Then word came out that Egypt had asked the EU to freeze their assets.  Sure didn't sound like anyone going graciously into the night.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the story in Egypt's largest newspaper, al-Ahram

..military leaders threatened to publish their own statement announcing that Mubarak had been sacked.
 
The newspaper said a statement announcing Mubarak's resignation was pre-recorded by the army's chief-of-staff, Sami Enan, and delivered to the offices of the state television broadcaster Nile TV.

In the end the statement was not broadcast after Suleiman agreed at the last minute to read his own statement that Mubarak had resigned in the interests of the country.

In the days since the resignation, senior government and party officials have confirmed that Mubarak originally made a commitment to resign on Thursday, only to change his mind at the last minute.

Al-Ahram and Associated Press reported that Mubarak's top aides and family concealed the full extent of what was happening on the streets, instead telling the 82-year-old that he could ride out the turmoil which had brought the country to a virtual standstill.

 ''He did not look beyond what Gamal was telling him, so he was isolated politically,'' one official was quoted as saying. ''Every incremental move [by Mubarak] was too little, too late.''

The al-Ahram story confirms other insider comments that Mubarak's end was pre-ordained five years ago when he surrounded himself with "yes men" who isolated Mubarak from the nation he ruled.   These sycophants are the same men the Egyptian army now has either under house arrest or prohibited from leaving the country.

al Arabiya also sheds a little light on Mubarak's last hours in office.   The Arab news channel confirms that Mubarak was supposed to resign on Thursday night until his son, Gamal, intervened and persuaded his father to instead announce he was staying.   Apparently this provoked a shouting match between Gamal and his brother, Alaa, who accused Gamal of bringing their father to a shameful end and dragging the country into corruption.