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The Indepenence List also won total, or near total, control of provincial syndicate boards in Ismailiya, Suez and Aswan – governorates where the Brotherhood could claim widespread support for its brand of politics.

in the last years of Mubarak, a younger generation of doctors started to organise in rank and file militant groups such as Doctors Without Rights (DWR) outside of the Syndicate’s internal body, against both Mubarak’s regime and the Brotherhood’s conservative union policies. In the aftermath of the January 25 revolution, these radical doctors, many of whom actually took part in the uprising against the dictator and were emboldened by their success in ousting him, embarked on organising their co-workers for campaigns to take workplace actions and strikes to improve their conditions.

This contrast between the new attitude of emboldened members and a static leadership was illustrated during the unprecedented national doctors’ strike last May. When doctors in public hospitals took industrial action against the government to demand minimum salaries and increased spending on healthcare from 4 per cent to 15 per cent of the budget, both the president of the Syndicate, Hamdy El-Sayed, and the Brotherhood-controlled national syndicate board denounced the strikers. Dr Mona Mina, a member of DWR who won a seat on the new national syndicate board in last Friday’s election and was one of the organisers of that historic strike, told Ahram Online that doctors found it hard to win that battle because of the Syndicate’s hostile position

The protesters called on President Mubarak and his two sons to intervene, chanting slogans like, "Why is the future bleak? Gamal, what are you going to do?" and "Alaa, tell your father the Tanta workers love him." Protesters also chanted that Prime Minister Nazif is taking Egypt "back to the [King] Farouk era."

The military, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly impatient with the failure of Mubarak and Omar Suleiman, his newly appointed vice president, to end the protests. The unrest spiraled out of control Thursday and Friday, with demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins and even gunbattles engulfing almost the entire nation.

When Mohamed al-Sayed, a labor leader at an aluminum factory, was hauled in by military interrogators about organizing strikes at the plant, he was surprised to find Mr. Mubarak’s framed portrait still hanging on the wall. (An addendum to the lawsuit over the name would require all pictures to come down, too.) One army officer told Mr. Sayed that Mr. Mubarak remained the supreme commander of the armed forces. (Although the president handed over the running of the country to a military council, the lack of any known letter of resignation means he might technically remain the head of state.)