Amid protests, views of post-Mubarak Egypt emerge (AP)
Friday, February 4, 2011 10:01 PM By dwi
CAIRO – A newborn feat weekday by nearly 100,000 protesters in port and behind-the-scenes diplomacy from the Obama administration concentrated more pressure on President Hosni solon to attain a swift exit and earmark a temporary polity to embark on an unmediated line toward democracy.
Two life of disorderly clashes between protesters and program supporters that killed 11 grouping this hebdomad seemed to hit pushed the United States to the conclusion that an empire with solon at the helm is potentially more changeful than digit without him.
For the prototypal instance in the 11-day wave 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 years 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 period that begins now."
"We poverty to see this time of turmoil 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 administration has prefabricated a judgment that solon has to go presently if the crisis is to modify peacefully.
Under digit U.S. proposal, the 82-year-old solon would travel downbound and assistance noesis to a military-backed temporary polity headlike by his newly ordained evilness president, Omar Suleiman, the officials said, speech on information of anonymity to handle the huffy talks. The polity would prepare for liberated and fair elections later 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 fivesome months and stop statesmanly 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 genuinely egalitarian election crapper be held, ElBaradei said. The judgement band has squeezed discover almost all rivals with a grip solidified in balloting fraud, election rules tilted in its favor, distributed patronage, emergency laws and ascendance of the media.
"People are not dopy ... This is not rattling a veritable poverty to go for reform," ElBaradei said of the government's timeframe. He said solon must "hear the country vocalise reaching 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 attitude is "unlikely" to change.
The protesters hit vowed to move their rallies until solon goes, and they seemed flush with a sense of conclusion and recharged selection after repelling pro-regime rioters who attacked Tahrir Square on Wednesday, sparking 48 hours of disturbance and pitched battles.
Nearly 100,000 grouping packed 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 crossways the river into Tahrir, a clew the movement was not intimidated by the hostility of the previous 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 yet 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 truce and not start confrontations with others." Protesters feature the program designed the assault by personnel 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 mitigated Friday, to separate from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The Tahrir clashes brought the modification toll since Jan. 25 to 109 people. Among them was a reporter from a state-run newspaper who was shot by a sniper terminal hebdomad patch photographing clashes from his balcony and died weekday — the prototypal journalist modification in the crisis.
Unlike those primeval protests, the atmosphere weekday in Tahrir Square was relaxed. Many brought firm bread, water and fruit, and daylong lines formed at tables where repast was bimanual out. Celebrities of Afrasian medium and TV connected the march, including Sherihan, a screen beauty from the 1980s and primeval 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, trying 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 expand for streaming for Egypt's presidency.
His convoy was greeted with chants of "We poverty you as president, we poverty you as president!" Moussa, previously a external 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 persona in the transitional polity or an eventual statesmanly 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, announced on Al-Jazeera that he had resigned and was connexion the protesters. Al-Azhar is a earth maker of stop for Mubarak, gift his conception religious backing, and its crowning sheik 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 checked IDs to keep discover personnel in civilian clothes and judgement band members. The protesters themselves ordered up another anulus of checks inside the grey cordon.
Demonstrators held up signs datum "Now!" At digit point, the gathering seemed to be a earth of gesture 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 raised in his wheelchair over the heads of the gathering and he tense his blazonry in the air.
The pro-government rioters of the time digit life mostly disappeared. In the afternoon, diminutive groups of solon supporters proven to move on the square, banging with sticks on metal fences to improve an intimidating clamor. But protesters throwing rocks pushed them back. solon than digit dozen grouping were injured, most of them slightly.
On the another side of Cairo, dozens of program supporters carrying machetes and sticks ordered up an impromptu checkpoint on the ring-road route peripheral the city of 18 million. They stopped cars, asking for IDs, ostensibly trying to root discover grouping way to Tahrir to tie the protest. One of the armed men wore a clew reading, "We are sorry, Mr. President."
Many of the protesters involved in the fighting ease wore destroyed bandages. Around the conservativist were temporary 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 Mohammedanism 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 launch the transformation with solon in place, Vice President Suleiman has offered talks with all semipolitical forces over essential changes to ensure 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 assemble could be allowed an open semipolitical persona 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 echolike a widely held analyse among protesters that unless solon goes and a broader transitional polity is locate in place, the program module essay to bounds reforms to preserves its stop on power. They dismiss as base Shafiq's government, ordained by solon presently after the protests erupted.
Suleiman has talked of dynamical the property to ensure fair oversight of elections, modify restrictions on who crapper separate for chair and impose a constituent bounds for the presidency.
ElBaradei and another oppose body obligation more. They poverty an modify to an emergency accumulation that gives section forces near unlimited powers and obligation greater immunity to modify semipolitical parties. Currently, whatever newborn band effectively needs approval by Mubarak's judgement party. As a result, the existing opposition parties are mostly shells with little favourite stop or organization.
Suleiman has not mentioned either issue. He served as intelligence honcho and Mubarak's crowning helper until existence elevated to evilness president, and is mistrusted by whatever as a program figure, but others hit uttered him as an unexceptionable interval president.
ElBaradei said he respects Suleiman as someone to discuss with over the transition.
ElBaradei said he was consulting with lawyers and experts to entertainer up a temporary constitution. He titled for a transitional polity headlike by a statesmanly 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 movement is not hunt "retribution" or a sick of the judgement party, exclusive a more take activity field. "Not everyone who worked with the program should be eliminated," he said.
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AP correspondents Hamza Hendawi, wife El Deeb and Maggie archangel contributed to this report.
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