Amid protests, views of post-Mubarak Egypt emerge (AP)
Friday, February 4, 2011 7:01 PM By dwi
CAIRO – A newborn rally weekday by nearly 100,000 protesters in port and behind-the-scenes tact from the Obama brass piled more pressure on President Hosni solon to attain a swift opening and allow a temporary polity to embark on an unmediated line toward democracy.
Two life of wild clashes between protesters and program supporters that killed 11 grouping this hebdomad seemed to hit pushed the United States to the closing that an empire with solon at the helm is potentially more unstable than digit without him.
For the prototypal instance in the 11-day gesture of protests, varied scenarios were existence locate forward by digit anti camps in empire and by the United States on how to usher the land into a post-Mubarak epoch after nearly 30 eld of his authoritarian rule.
President Barack Obama said that discussions hit begun in empire on a turnover of the polity and he titled for "a transformation punctuation that begins now."
"We poverty to wager this time of disturbance turned into a time of opportunity," Obama said in Washington. He did not explicitly call for solon to travel downbound immediately, but U.S. officials said the brass has prefabricated a judgment that solon has to go presently if the crisis is to end peacefully.
Under digit U.S. proposal, the 82-year-old solon would travel downbound and hand noesis to a military-backed temporary polity headlike by his newly ordained vice president, Omar Suleiman, the officials said, speaking on information of anonymity to discuss the huffy talks. The polity would educate for liberated and clean elections after this year.
That would tangle in whatever structure with the demands of the protesters. But digit momentous difference was the timetable.
Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, digit of the body of the protesters, criticized the government's organisation to improve the property within five months and stop presidential elections in September, locution that was too rushed.
It would verify a flooded assemblage low a transitional polity to sufficiently modify the judgement party's entrenched monopoly on persuasion before a truly egalitarian election crapper be held, ElBaradei said. The judgement band has squeezed discover almost every rivals with a grip solid in balloting fraud, election rules tilted in its favor, widespread patronage, emergency laws and domination of the media.
"People are not stupid ... This is not really a genuine desire to go for reform," ElBaradei said of the government's timeframe. He said solon staleness "hear the clear voice coming from the grouping and leave in dignity."
Mubarak has staunchly refused to travel downbound until elections in September, and his maturity minister said weekday that stance is "unlikely" to change.
The protesters hit vowed to move their rallies until solon goes, and they seemed flush with a significance of conclusion and recharged determination after repelling pro-regime rioters who attacked Tahrir Square on Wednesday, sparking 48 hours of disturbance and pitched battles.
Nearly 100,000 grouping crowded the downtown plaza, whose study means "Liberation," in a oppose dubbed the "Friday of departure" in hopes it would be the period solon goes. It was the large display since a quarter-million grouping rallied Tuesday.
Crowds that included families with children flowed over bridges across the river into Tahrir, a clew the shitting was not intimidated by the hostility of the preceding digit days. In that fighting, pro-Mubarak combatants, whatever on horses and camels, hurled concrete, metal exerciser and firebombs, and unleashed barrages of semiautomatic gunfire, but were eventually driven away.
The judgement National Democratic Party, accused by protesters of organizing the attack, denied whatever role, but titled on its supporters to "adhere to a peace and not start confrontations with others." Protesters feature the program designed the attack by police in civilian clothes and paying thugs.
Suleiman and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq promised no action would be condemned against the oppose camp. A curfew in locate for a hebdomad but widely ignored was eased Friday, to separate from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The Tahrir clashes brought the death toll since Jan. 25 to 109 people. Among them was a communicator from a state-run newspaper who was effort by a sniper last hebdomad patch photographing clashes from his balcony and died weekday — the prototypal journalist death in the crisis.
Unlike those early protests, the region weekday in Tahrir Square was relaxed. Many brought firm bread, liquid and fruit, and daylong lines formed at tables where repast was handed out. Celebrities of Afrasian cinema and TV connected the march, including Sherihan, a screen beauty from the 1980s and early 1990s.
In the morning, Defense Minister Husayn Tantawi visited the square, the maximal polity amount to do so. He reviewed the personnel stationed there and mingled with protesters, disagreeable to convince them that most of their demands hit been met and they should go home.
Arab League honcho Amr Moussa also came to the conservativist in what appeared to be a trial balloon for running for Egypt's presidency.
His convoy was greeted with chants of "We poverty you as president, we poverty you as president!" Moussa, previously a foreign minister low Mubarak, has an grownup politico appeal, boosted by his thickened bunk against Israel.
Asked by France's aggregation 1 radio if he would study a role in the transitional polity or an eventual presidential run, Moussa replied, "Why feature no?"
In a clew of cracks in whatever key program pillars, Mohammed Rafat al-Tahtawi, the spokesman of Al-Azhar Mosque, the country's pre-eminent Islamic institution, declared on Al-Jazeera that he had hopeless and was connexion the protesters. Al-Azhar is a major maker of stop for Mubarak, giving his conception religious backing, and its crowning swayer has titled for protesters to go home.
In a clew that Egypt's most coercive hospital was enabling the demonstration, soldiers at the entrances to Tahrir patterned IDs to keep discover police in civilian clothes and judgement band members. The protesters themselves ordered up another ring of checks exclusive the grey cordon.
Demonstrators held up signs datum "Now!" At digit point, the crowd seemed to be a earth of waving Afrasian red-black-and-white flags. Thousands prostrated themselves in the noon Islamic prayers then — directly after uttering the last "God's peace and blessings be upon you" — they launched into chants of "Leave! Leave! Leave!" A man was lifted in his wheelchair over the heads of the crowd and he tense his blazonry in the air.
The pro-government rioters of the past digit life mostly disappeared. In the afternoon, diminutive groups of solon supporters tried to move on the square, fighting with sticks on metal fences to raise an discouraging clamor. But protesters throwing rocks pushed them back. More than digit dozen grouping were injured, most of them slightly.
On the another side of Cairo, mountain of program supporters carrying machetes and sticks ordered up an impromptu checkpoint on the ring-road route encircling the municipality of 18 million. They obstructed cars, asking for IDs, apparently disagreeable to root discover grouping way to Tahrir to tie the protest. One of the brachiate men wore a clew reading, "We are sorry, Mr. President."
Many of the protesters involved in the fighting ease wore tattered bandages. Around the conservativist were makeshift clinics, ordered up in the entrances of stores, including a KFC restaurant. Above digit was the clew of an interlocking rounded and cross, the signs of Islam and Christianity.
Despite the call for Mubarak's unmediated departure, Prime Minister Shafiq told Al-Arabiya that was "unlikely."
"Mubarak's remaining as chair is a maker of section for the nation," he said.
Trying to start the transformation with solon in place, Vice President Suleiman has offered talks with every semipolitical forces over constitutional changes to secure a liberated vote. solon has said he module not separate for re-election.
Suleiman said the invitation goes discover to oppose body and the regime's crowning foe, the Islamic Brotherhood. That was significant, suggesting the illegal fundamentalist group could be allowed an unstoppered semipolitical role in the post-Mubarak era.
But so farther the oppose factions hit stuck to their information that solon travel downbound before whatever negotiations on the constitution.
ElBaradei's comments reflected a widely held view among protesters that unless solon goes and a broader transitional polity is locate in place, the program module essay to limit reforms to preserve its stop on power. They dismiss as base Shafiq's government, ordained by solon presently after the protests erupted.
Suleiman has talked of changing the property to secure clean supervision of elections, modify restrictions on who crapper separate for chair and impose a constituent limit for the presidency.
ElBaradei and another oppose body obligation more. They poverty an end to an emergency accumulation that gives section forces nearby unlimited powers and obligation greater immunity to form semipolitical parties. Currently, whatever newborn band effectively needs support by Mubarak's judgement party. As a result, the existing opposition parties are mostly shells with little popular stop or organization.
Suleiman has not mentioned either issue. He served as info honcho and Mubarak's crowning aide until existence elevated to vice president, and is mistrusted by whatever as a program figure, but others hit uttered him as an acceptable interim president.
ElBaradei said he respects Suleiman as someone to negotiate with over the transition.
ElBaradei said he was consulting with lawyers and experts to draw up a temporary constitution. He titled for a transitional polity headlike by a presidential council of digit or threesome figures, including a expeditionary representative. It would stop noesis for a assemblage patch a imperishable property is worn up, then elections could verify place.
Still, he underlined that the oppose shitting is not seeking "retribution" or a sick of the judgement party, only a more level playing field. "Not everyone who worked with the program should be eliminated," he said.
_____
AP correspondents Hamza Hendawi, wife El Deeb and Maggie Michael contributed to this report.
Source
0 comments:
Post a Comment