The Next President on Tunisia?

Tunisia's next president?

Such is the sad state of Arab politics that even republics now have hereditary rule. Decades ago, these then new republican governments (from the beginning they were republican in the sense of lacking a monarchy and based on a [rubber-stamp] parliament and party rule where merit was supposed to dominate and not in any democratic sense) used to mock the monarchs of the Gulf as backwards while they the leader of this or that republic represented a new order and the future.

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Alas, it did not take long for that backward feature of hereditary rule found in monarchs to become embedded in these republics which initially promised to break with the old order of nepotism. Nasser bequeathed Sadat in Egypt, no relation between the two so no hereditary rule there, but Sadat's successor Hosni Mubarak intends to be the first Egyptian ruler since the age of the old monarch (overthrown by Nasser in 1956) to restore hereditary rule. He is aggressively grooming his son Gamal Mubarak to be his replacement.

Then there is Libya: Colonel Qadhafi is also setting the stage for his son Saif to take over.

Syria's already seen the passage of hereditary rule when long-time dictator Hafez al-Assad entrenched his son Bashir to be his replacement which he duly became when the former died in 2000.

Lebanon is no exception. Family politics has always dominated in this land of sects. But in the 1960s and 1970s there were left-wing, secular parties which espoused progressive values. The Progressive Socialist Party of Kamel Jumblatt is more notable. But when Jumblatt was assassinated it was his son Walid who took over and this symbol of a unifying Lebanese party become instead a hereditary party geared toward advancing the interests of the Druze within a confessional framework rather than ending this system of sectarianism and family politics. Walid is now grooming his soon to take over the PSP.

On the Sunni side it is the same. The assassination of Rafiq Hariri lead to his son Sa'ad Hariri taking over the Future party.

The right-wing Christian party the Phalange is equally similar with the Gemayel family, which created the Phalange, still dominating its leadership.

The only major faction in Lebanon lacking hereditary rule is currently the Shiite's Hezbullah and the centrist Christians of Michel Aun's Free Patriotic Movement.

And, finally, Tunisia is equally becoming a land of hereditary rule. Habib Bourguibe was overthrown in a medical coup back in 1986 by the current president Ben Ali. But just as with Mubarak, Ben Ali (unrelated to Bourguiba) has ambitions to keep his family in power. But he lacks an eligible son (his son is, like, sever or something) so his son-in-law may do. Meet the ambitious, politically, business-sense, and media-sense, son-in-law:

The son-in-law of Tunisia's president said in an interview his election to parliament and growing portfolio of media assets were not signs that he held political ambitions.

The rapid rise to prominence of businessman Sakher Materi, who is married to the daughter of 73-year-old President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, has sparked speculation that he is being groomed to take on a senior role in government.

"The ambitions that some people are exaggerating, that is completely wrong," he told Reuters in a rare interview.

"My objective is to participate, together with the Tunisian people, in the prosperity of our country," said Materi, aged 30. "My loyalty to President Ben Ali and to his national project is without limit."

Materi also said he had business projects planned for launch in the first half of 2010 worth a total of $100 million, including the opening of Tunisia's first Islamic bank, and a new terminal for Mediterranean cruise liners.

Materi, whose business interests range from pharmaceuticals to real estate, took on a higher profile last year when he was elected to parliament and was named a member of the ruling party's central committee.

He became a player in the media with the purchase of Tunisia's biggest-circulation newspaper, Essabah, and the acquisition of the first Islamic radio station. He said he hoped soon to add a religious television station to promote tolerance.

"I am in the process of setting up a media network targeted at serving my country," he said. "If some see it as an empire then that's their affair. I am not someone who likes titles."

Materi said his Islamic bank will start operating by the end of the first half, initially with nine branches and capital of $30 million, which would rise to $80 million after two years.

Materi revealed for the first time that in June this year he would open a major tourist complex in La Goulette, a suburb of the Tunisian capital.

Regrettable this lying and phony buffoon may be the next president. What an awful state of affairs.