Their simple message broke ground in Egypt, where the president was always sheltered against public rage.

On Monday, the third protest since December 12, demonstrators shouted “Down with Hosni Mubarak” as they gathered in front of Cairo University while around 50 trucks packed with police were deployed nearby.

Under the state of emergency in force since the 1981 assassination of Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat, demonstrations are normally tolerated in Egypt only on university campuses or outside mosques.

But even then, hardly was a word heard against Mubarak himself.

The organisers represent a coalition of groups that first surfaced two months ago when it organised a protest by some 300 people outside the Palace of Justice.

The second protest was held February 4 at the Cairo international book fair.

The demonstrators, mostly intellectuals and never more than a few hundred, included Marxists, Nasserites, liberals and Islamic dissidents from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mubarak, 76, succeeded Sadat who was killed by Islamists in 1981.

If he wins a fifth six-year term later this year, he will become the longest serving president since the overthrow of the monarch in 1954.

“A quarter of a century in power is enough” and “Mubarak, admit you’re a despot”, the protestors chanted on Monday.

They also brandished banners with the slogan “No to hereditary power”—a reference to steps being taken by the government in an apparent move to groom Mubarak’s eldest son, Gamal, as a successor.

Leaflets handed out at the rally called for a constitutional amendment that would limit presidents to two, four-year terms in power, instead of an indefinite number of six-year terms, as now.

“Any Egyptian who meets the conditions required to become president must be able to vye freely for the post,” the statement said.

In their first public defiance of the presidential powers, protesters who took to the streets of Cairo in December boldly chanted a hymn of glory to Egypt, the words of which they changed to sing their despair.

“Egypt, mother of the world, you are still politically and economically oppressed. My country, you deserve a revolution,” they said.

They also held up banners that read “No to the heredity of power. No to a fifth term”.

During February’s rally the tone rose.

“Mubarak, you bankrupt, what are you doing with our money,” the demontrators chanted. “We want a free government, life is becoming bitter.”

A speaker told the crowd: “During Mubarak’s four terms in office, a quarter of a million Egyptians have been jailed. If you want others to follow them, vote for a fifth term.”

Under the Egyptian political system, parliament will elect a single candidate for the presidency in May, whose name will then be put to a referendum in September or October.