Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is holding fast to his step-by-step approach to political reform despite pressure to speed up the process since the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Mubarak outlined his program to some 50 Egyptian intellectuals on the sidelines of the Cairo International Book Fair late on Tuesday, saying political reform is the "cornerstone" of reforms underway in Egypt.
However, he said he would take small steps in order to "preserve stability, the foundation of progress in all fields," especially in the face of international terrorism.
Stability has been Mubarak's trademark concern during the 23 years he has been at Egypt's helm, succeeding president Anwar Sadat when he was assassinated by Islamic militants in October 1981.
At the same time Mubarak said "big steps" had been taken under his leadership toward democratization.
The president was responding indirectly to criticism that has multiplied both at home and abroad and has demanded reform of a highly centralized political system that confers broad powers on the president.
Several days ago, Richard Perle, a former advisor to US President George W. Bush, called Egypt a "dictatorship," causing ripples of irritation on the banks of the Nile.
On January 1, Mubarak said his son, Gamal, will not succeed him as president, scotching rumors that a dynasty was in the offing.
"This is nonsense ... the regime in Egypt is republican, there is no hereditary transfer of power. This happened in a certain country, it will not happen in Egypt," Mubarak said in a television interview.
Mubarak was referring to fellow Arab state Syria, where Bashar al-Assad took over from his father Hafez after his death in 2000.
Gamal Mubarak, 40, was named in 2002 to head the ruling National Democratic Party's powerful political committee, fueling rumours he was being groomed to succeed his father despite his lack of military experience.
The Egyptian republic was founded in 1952 when military officers overthrew King Faruq.
Mubarak has never named a vice president, the route he and his predecessor, Sadat, took to become head of state, both after a career in the army.
The tiny Egyptian opposition, which has called for a system of democratic change in leadership, is pressing for an acceleration of institutional and political reform.
It is asking for a reduction in the powers of the head of state as well as for a cut in both the length and number of terms served. It has also pushed for the independence of judges and for the scrapping of emergency courts.
Critics have said the government is making cosmetic changes to improve Egypt's image abroad.
In line with a law pushed by Mubarak and adopted by parliament last year, the government on Monday set up a 25-member advisory Human Rights Council headed by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a former UN secretary general.
However, human rights activists like Gasser Abdel Razzak were skeptical about chances for the government to change its human rights policy, including stamping out alleged abuses like torture at police stations.
Abdel Razzak cited the government's continuing arrests of both Islamists and liberals, its "brutal" crackdown on protests against the US-led war in Iraq and its renewal yet again last year of the decades-old state of emergency.
Boutros-Ghali, a former minister of state for foreign affairs who has remained close to the government while enjoying broad political contacts oversees, will help burnish Egypt's image abroad, critics here charge.
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