Egypt censors spy chief's presidency campaign

By Marwa Awad

CAIRO (Reuters) - Activists launched this week a poster campaign backing Egypt's intelligence chief General Omar Suleiman for the 2011 presidency, a move to head off an ongoing campaign for President Hosni Mubarak's son as the next leader.

But the editor-in-chief of an independent newspaper which is covering the campaign said a high-ranking security body told him not to publish anything on the pro-Suleiman campaign, suggesting the posters have rattled the establishment.

Talk that Gamal Mubarak, 46, could succeed his father has gathered momentum since the president had surgery in March in Germany and because of a poster campaign backing him in 2011.

Officials deny any role in the campaign backing Gamal.

But the pro-Suleiman campaign aimed at derailing support for the president's son and sought to show divisions existed between the army and his business allies.

In a statement issued online but which was later withdrawn the pro-Suleiman anonymous activists appealed to Egypt's "honourable army" to save the country from "the shame and disgrace of succession which the president's son seeks".

"The way to deal with the succession project of Gamal Mubarak and his business clout, is for Omar Suleiman to lead a transitional government," they said.

Analysts have long thought Suleiman, known to be a close family friend of the Mubaraks, was a likely successor, but he has never expressed any wish to run for president.