That may still happen, although many Egyptians believe that Gamal Mubarak's chances are waning.
Thus a would-be-leader, such as Gamal Mubarak, gladly seizes on the issue to polish his nationalist credentials.
The crowds on the streets have almost as much contempt for Gamal Mubarak as they have for his father.
Gamal Mubarak is widely seen as a symbol of nepotism and privilege.
One reason is that Gamal Mubarak is not a military man.
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The influential Gamal Mubarak still holds no official position in the government and authorities have dismissed speculation that he is being groomed to succeed his 76-year-old father.
Last fall, I met Gamal Mubarak in his office, a large, sunlit room on the second floor of the National Democratic Party headquarters, in central Cairo, overlooking the Nile.
But many see the beginning of a bid for succession that has long been expected, despite Gamal Mubarak's flagging popularity and a five-year-old campaign against hereditary succession that has resonated widely.
Hisham Kassem, the former publisher of the Cairo daily Al Masri Al Youm, told me that, in late 2004, he attended a speech that Gamal Mubarak gave at the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.
While Gamal Mubarak, the politician son, has never been popular among Egyptians, who believed his father wanted to hand him the reins of power, popular opinion has only recently turned against his businessman brother, Alaa.
"The most important step that he can take is to address his nation and declare that neither he nor the son he has been positioning as his successor will run in the presidential election this year, " he wrote, referring to Gamal Mubarak.
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Gamal and Alaa Mubarak are already on trial alongside their father for abuse of power.
Gamal and Alaa Mubarak have been imprisoned since spring 2011.
In the period around the 2005 election, ElBaradei met several times with Hosni Mubarak and also with Gamal.
Yasser El-Hodeiby a member of the MB Freedom and Justice and Party (FJP), stated in an interview with Almasry Alyoum newspaper on January 1, 2012 that the Brotherhood officially gave Bay'ia to Mubarak and his son Gamal, in 2005.
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Mr Mubarak's sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also being retried on corruption charges for which they were acquitted in June 2012, because of the expiry of a statute of limitations.
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Mr Mubarak's sons, Gamal and Alaa, will be retried on corruption charges for which they were acquitted in June, because of the expiry of a statute of limitations.
Mr Mubarak and his two sons, Gamal and Alaa, will also be re-tried for corruption charges, of which they were found not guilty the first time round.
During the court proceeding, Mr. Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, were acquitted of corruption charges related to the controversial purchase of seaside villas on Egypt's Red Sea Coast.
They mean the senior Mubarak, despite the fact that his younger son, Gamal, has played a remarkably prominent role in the ruling NDP for the past decade and often appears at his father's side.
" El Gamal, the Cairo student, said she believes the latest accounts about Mubarak's health were staged to evoke "sympathy from the street.
But the critical political motivator was almost certainly opposition to Mubarak's long-feared effort to have his son Gamal succeed him in yet another well-rigged Egyptian election.
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Their most useful connection is often one of Mr Mubarak's two sons, particularly the younger one, Gamal, an investment banker who is said to have been instrumental in the mid-1990s in persuading his father to give entrepreneurs their head.
Mr. Mubarak and his co-defendants, including his two sons Alaa and Gamal, said nothing except to announce their presence to Mr. Rifaat.
"Mubarak's not any different than anyone else, " said Massa el Gamal, 18.
Mr Mubarak will also face charges of financial corruption alongside his two sons, Alaa and Gamal.
There are simply no politicians on the stage at present whose stature even distantly approaches Mr Mubarak's, or who have the public profile lately achieved by his son Gamal.
Mr Mubarak may be trying to avert just such a threat by grooming his modern-minded son, Gamal, as his successor.
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