All Egypt asks the same question: 'Will Mubarak go now?'

So will he go or will he stay? In Tahrir Square, they’re calling it “Departure Friday” – time for President Mubarak to throw in the towel.

In his ABC interview, Mr Mubarak said he feared chaos if he left office. Well, what have we got now? Is this violence not chaotic? Or does he mean that this violence is well orchestrated and organised and if he leaves, it will have no-one masterminding it?

Even the Americans no longer see him as any kind of anchor, but rather as a liability. Diplomatic sources tell me that one idea floating around is that a three man leadership might take over in the interim before elections, but the Egyptian authorities are “extremely resistant”. The Egyptian constitution says that in the event of the President stepping down, the speaker of the parliament takes over, but the US and European governments don’t see that as an insurmountable problem. The Americans are saying to their interloctors in Egypt that they want to help Egypt avoid chaos – adding that they want to help President Mubarak leave with his head held high. “It all affects pride,” said a source. “Incapacity, or stress might be the best bet.” In other words, President Mubarak could step down without admitting he was ousted. But there is little evidence that senior military men – who really hold the fate of the country in their hands – are telling him that he must go.

The aim of the Americans, it seems, is to get rid of Mubarak without changing the system which has served their interests for so long. A transition but not a revolutionary one. Vice-President Omar Suleiman is a good friend to the Americans, not least because he did their dirty business sorting out the rendition of terror suspects. Maybe that means they owe him one, rather than the other way round. But it’s arguable that the departure of Mubarak would now benefit both the Americans and those senior Egyptian officials who have supported him until now, because it could be the only way to preserve the status quo. Mubarak-ism without Mubarak.

Yesterday Suleiman said that the elections could be brought forward from September to August. One of the young men I’ve met in Alexandria laughed at that. “It’s like the Egyptian market,” he said. “They start with September, and then move to August. We say now.” So maybe they’ll end up in the middle, which is what always happens in the bazaar. It seems that Mohammed ElBaradei is the best known opposition presidential candidate, as the young people in the April 6 movement who started this process are more concerned with getting rid of the old guard than working out what or who is to replace the government.

I’m writing this in an apartment overlooking Alexandria’s Qaed Ibrahim mosque, from where I can hear chants and see anti government demontrators waving flags and banners. The pro government supporters are apparently on the other side of town, assembling at the stadium.  Hopefully here and in Cairo, the army will ensure the two groups do not clash. Maybe today’s protests will be decisive. Or has the momentum now passed to the Americans, whose conversations with Egypt’s military and political elite could be the factor which persuades President Mubarak that it’s time to go?