Profile of Hosni Mubarak

Unprecedented mass protests in Egypt leave President Hosni Mubarak clinging to power.

CAIRO, EGYPT (FILE - SEPTEMBER 16, 1999) REUTERS - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak came to power at a moment of national crisis after a dramatic act of political violence coupled with an armed insurgency.

Thirty years later he is clinging to power, with more than 140 people dead in the streets and with no clear successor.

Throughout the intervening three decades and despite scores of empty promises, Mubarak has done nothing to create an institutional framework for a peaceful and democratic transfer of power in the Arab world's most populous nation.Instead he has perpetuated a system in which politics in the conventional sense hardly exists, running the country by administrative fiat as if it were an army or a corporation.

Mubarak owes his presidential career to President Anwar Sadat, who saw him as a loyal subordinate and appointed him vice president in 1975. At the time he was commander of the air force, with no political experience or ambitions. When Sadat summoned him to the presidential palace to offer him the job, the most Mubarak expected was that he would end up as Egyptian ambassador in some European capital, he said in a television interview in 2005.

Islamist revolutionaries gunned Sadat down at a military parade in Cairo on October 6, 1981, and Mubarak, who was sitting next to Sadat and was slightly injured, stepped into the breach, to widespread relief among ordinary Egyptians. Islamist insurgents, incensed by Sadat's peace treaty with Israel, simultaneously tried to take over the southern city of Assiut. Mubarak sent in the army to crush them. At the time his solid presence and cautious demeanour had a calming effect on a country traumatised by the assassination of Sadat and fearful of chaos and civil war. But once installed in power, Mubarak never offered Egyptians any vision other than economic development under the same authoritarian system he had inherited from the army officers who overthrew the monarchy in 1952.

Mubarak pledged to continue implementing Sadat's policies, including the peace process with Israel which had prompted much of the Arab world to shun Egypt.

He presided over the return to Egypt of large parts of the Sinai peninsula which had been occupied by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War.

Widely respected for his calming influence in a turbulent Middle East, Mubarak won U.S. appreciation for his attempts to negotiate an elusive peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Mubarak openly supported Yasser Arafat when a revolt broke out against his leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1983. Arafat acknowledged this support when he visited Mubarak in December 1983 after the PLO's expulsion from Lebanon. The visit marked an important stage in Egypt's rehabilitation as a leading influence on the course of Arab affairs.

Egypt supported Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran but Mubarak helped rally Arab support against Baghdad after Iraq occupied Kuwait in 1990. Egypt contributed troops to the U.S.-led alliance which drove the Iraqis out in 1991.

By the beginning of the 1990's, after more than a decade as an outcast, Mubarak had succeeded in restoring Egypt's ties with Arab countries and persuaded the influential Arab League to return to its former headquarters in Cairo.

Mubarak has been the target of several assassination attempts, including a spectacular attack on his motorcade in Addis Ababa in 1995. He survived unscathed when gunmen sprayed bullets at his armoured limousine which was taking him to an African summit in the Ethiopian capital.

More than 1,200 people were killed between 1992 and 1997 as militant groups waged a six-year armed campaign for a purist Islamic state. The political violence, led by al-Gama'a al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), climaxed in the bloody Luxor massacre of November 1997 when six gunmen killed 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians.

Military courts have played a crucial role in Mubarak's successful campaign to crush the militants. Tens of thousands were arrested and detained under emergency laws which had remained in force since Sadat's assassination.

Mubarak has continued to act as an unofficial patron of the Middle East peace process, hosting summits between Israeli and Arab leaders, keeping a close watch on their negotiations and maintaining good relations with the United States.

Following the death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004, Mubarak agreed to host his funeral ceremony enabling Arab leaders who could not travel to the occupied West Bank and Gaza to attend.

After seven years of domestic peace, political violence returned to Egypt. In July 2005 bombers struck the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing at least 64 and denting Mubarak's image as a guarantor of security and stability.

Mubarak has spoken about democracy whenever the occasion arises but his actions have never suggested he understood the concept to include the possibility of early retirement or losing power through elections. He preferred to talk about security and stability, portraying himself as a benign patriarch protecting the country from an array of enemies, some real and some imaginary.

Responding to U.S. pressure to open up the political system, Mubarak proposed constitutional amendments to end the system of referendums on a single, pre-selected candidate in presidential elections. Egypt's first multi-candidate presidential elections were held in September 2005 and Mubarak won a fifth consecutive six-year term.

Two months later the opposition Muslim Brotherhood made strong gains in parliamentary elections amid claims of widespread voting irregularities. Observers and human rights activists alleged Egyptian police detained hundreds of Islamists and prevented people from voting by sealing off polling stations.

After a week of unprecedented street protests calling on the 82-year old to step down, Mubarak's days in power look to be numbered. At least 140 people have died since demonstrations began on January 25. The military, which has run Egypt since it toppled the monarchy in 1952, will be the key player in deciding who replaces him and some expect it to retain significant power while introducing enough reforms to defuse the protests.

The United States and other Western powers have demanded Mubarak hold free elections. Even if he holds out against calls for his resignation, it seems unlikely he could win a vote.