Egypt unrest: Mubarak confounds all

Mubarak transfers some of his powers to the vice president but insists on staying in office.

CAIRO: Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak dug in his heels on Thursday night and said he won’t step down yet but would transfer some of his powers to Vice President Omar Suleiman, angering hundreds of thousands of his countrymen in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and elsewhere in the country.

In a televised address to the nation, the president said he has requested amendments of six constitutional articles for the sake of a peaceful transition. The president, who was largely expected to announce his stepping down from power and handing the reins to Vice President Omar Suleiman, instead confirmed pledges to prepare for honest elections in his speech to the nation.

By handing over some powers to his vice president Mubarak said he would prove that the demands of protesters will be met by dialogue.

“Egypt is braving through hard times where we cannot tolerate these circumstances to continue,” Mubarak said, referring to weeks of massive nationwide protests demanding his ouster.

Protesters reacted to the news by waving shoes in dismay at Mubarak’s speech to the nation on Thursday, witnesses said.

Prostesters also chanted, “down, down with Hosni Mubarak,” and “leave, leave,” in rage at the speech.

The president also said the emergency law could be scrapped when circumstances allow, but not now. He said he would never accept “foreign diktats” and renewed an earlier pledge to not leave Egypt and promised that the country would remain above the individual.

Mubarak said he would stay in office until the next elections due in September. He said Egypt was heading “day after day” to a peaceful transfer of power and he was committed to protect the constitution until that happens. But he spurned protesters’ demands that he quit office immediately.

However, he did announce the delegation of some responsibilities of power to Omar Suleiman but not an all out transfer of power.

Dissident leader Mohammed ElBaradei has called for a three-member executive council and a national unity government to replace Mubarak. “The leader of the regime must make place for a presidential council composed of three people and a government of national unity,” ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told Austria’s die Presse daily. ElBaradei, the former head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, outlined the steps Egypt should take next; free and democratic elections and a transitional constitution within a year.

US President Barack Obama declared the world was watching history unfold and a moment of transformation in Egypt.

Obama also directly addressed the young people of Egypt who have swelled massive crowds in Cairo, saying America would do all it could to ensure a genuine transition to democracy at an apparently pivotal moment of the crisis.

“What is absolutely clear is that we are witnessing history unfold. It is a moment of transformation that is taking place because the people of Egypt are calling for change,” Obama said in the northern state of Michigan.

In Brussels, the European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said the 27-member-state bloc stands ready to help Egypt build a deep-rooted democracy.

Ashton said she had spoken to Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit earlier in the day about Europe’s role in the events unfolding in his country. The EU will be ready with “a package of measures” to help and support the transition she told the minister.

With input from news wires

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2011.