Generals face rally demanding their ouster
Source: Agencies |
November 28, 2011, Monday
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PROTESTERS rallied again in Cairo's Tahrir Square yesterday to try to evict the generals who replaced Hosni Mubarak, in a trial of strength that has muddied the run-up to Egypt's first vote since a popular revolt deposed the former leader.
The parliamentary election that gets under way today and tomorrow is the first step on the ruling army council's timetable towards a transfer to civilian rule, now promised for July.
Some Egyptians yearn for stability after a week of bloodshed that has killed 42 people and wounded over 2,000, preferring for now to let the generals run a nation whose prolonged political turmoil has thrust the economy deeper into crisis.
But the demonstrators want the council to make way for a civilian interim administration immediately. They reject its choice of 78-year-old Kamal Ganzouri to form the next cabinet.
Activists had called for a mass rally in Tahrir to pile pressure on the generals, and by mid-afternoon there were thousands in the square, hub of the unrest that toppled Mubarak.
Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the council, said the army would ensure security at the polling booths.
"We are at a crossroads. There are only two routes, the success of elections leading Egypt towards safety or facing dangerous hurdles that we in the armed forces, as part of the Egyptian people, will not allow," he declared.
Abdel Moneim Aboul Futuh, an Islamist presidential candidate who opposes military rule, said: "The nation is larger than Field Marshal Tantawi and Lieutenant General Sami Enan and the military council. A government with revolutionary leadership must be formed to meet the demands of Tahrir Square."
State television quoted Tantawi as saying the army's role in the new constitution would be unchanged: to protect the nation.
The outgoing cabinet angered many Egyptians by floating proposals that would have given the army sweeping national security powers and protected it from civilian scrutiny.
The generals have received tacit support from Islamist parties eager that nothing should disrupt voting in the first of three rounds of an election in which they expect to do well.
Bassam Sharaf, among protesters outside parliament, said the objection to Ganzouri was not his age, but the policies he pursued as prime minister under Mubarak from 1996 to 1999.
"Two-thirds of the ministers that Ganzouri appointed in his day are now in Tora prison," he said, referring to Mubarak-era officials accused of corruption and other offences who were put on trial after an uprising swept Mubarak from power in February.
Some protesters favor Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, who has offered to drop his campaign for the presidency and to lead a government of national unity.
The parliamentary election that gets under way today and tomorrow is the first step on the ruling army council's timetable towards a transfer to civilian rule, now promised for July.
Some Egyptians yearn for stability after a week of bloodshed that has killed 42 people and wounded over 2,000, preferring for now to let the generals run a nation whose prolonged political turmoil has thrust the economy deeper into crisis.
But the demonstrators want the council to make way for a civilian interim administration immediately. They reject its choice of 78-year-old Kamal Ganzouri to form the next cabinet.
Activists had called for a mass rally in Tahrir to pile pressure on the generals, and by mid-afternoon there were thousands in the square, hub of the unrest that toppled Mubarak.
Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the council, said the army would ensure security at the polling booths.
"We are at a crossroads. There are only two routes, the success of elections leading Egypt towards safety or facing dangerous hurdles that we in the armed forces, as part of the Egyptian people, will not allow," he declared.
Abdel Moneim Aboul Futuh, an Islamist presidential candidate who opposes military rule, said: "The nation is larger than Field Marshal Tantawi and Lieutenant General Sami Enan and the military council. A government with revolutionary leadership must be formed to meet the demands of Tahrir Square."
State television quoted Tantawi as saying the army's role in the new constitution would be unchanged: to protect the nation.
The outgoing cabinet angered many Egyptians by floating proposals that would have given the army sweeping national security powers and protected it from civilian scrutiny.
The generals have received tacit support from Islamist parties eager that nothing should disrupt voting in the first of three rounds of an election in which they expect to do well.
Bassam Sharaf, among protesters outside parliament, said the objection to Ganzouri was not his age, but the policies he pursued as prime minister under Mubarak from 1996 to 1999.
"Two-thirds of the ministers that Ganzouri appointed in his day are now in Tora prison," he said, referring to Mubarak-era officials accused of corruption and other offences who were put on trial after an uprising swept Mubarak from power in February.
Some protesters favor Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, who has offered to drop his campaign for the presidency and to lead a government of national unity.
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