ElBaradei 'willing' to head Egypt's cabinet

27/11/2011| IslamWeb

Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian presidential candidate and leading political figure in the country, has said he will drop his bid to be head of state, if the country's military rulers allow him to become the interim prime minister, his office said.

ElBaradei, who met earlier on Saturday with the head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, said he was "ready to renounce the idea of being a candidate in the presidential election if officially asked to form a cabinet".

Protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square demanding that the army step down from power have repeatedly proposed ElBaradei - a former UN nuclear watchdog chief - to lead the transition to democratic rule.

ElBaradei said he was "willing to respond to the demands of the youth of the revolution and the political forces calling for a national salvation government that represents all the national forces."

His statement comes amid political upheaval, with anti-military rallies threatening to eclipse Monday's parliamentary elections, the first since Mubarak was ousted in February.

Violence erupted when protesters marched to the parliament and cabinet buildings earlier on Saturday, to demonstrate against the appointment of Kamal el-Ganzouri as prime minister.

Police fired tear gas into a crowd gathered outside the cabinet headquarters in Cairo.

An unarmed demonstrator has been killed in fresh clashes in central Cairo as protesters remained camped out in Tahrir Square in the aftermath of a mass rally on Friday.

Witnesses say Ahmed Sayed Sorour, a demonstrator, was run over by a police vehicle.

The Interior Ministry expressed regret for the death of Serour and said it was an accident. However, the ministry also said the protesters were partially to blame for throwing Molotov cocktails at the armed police vehicles.

Omar Robert Hamilton, an activist who participated in the morning march, said seven riot police vans had pulled up in the parliament street.

"Before they could get out, everyone ran forward and chanted for them to leave," he told Al Jazeera.

"They turned around, they didn't seem to not know what they were doing. They drove off, and a couple of kids threw rocks at them. They drove around the corner, and the next thing is that a man is carried back, covered in blood."

Political activists have called for another mass protest on Sunday to express their rejection of the military's decision to appoint Ganzouri - who served as Mubarak's premier - as the country's new prime minister.

Since clashes broke out on November 19 between protesters and security forces, 42 people have been killed and more than 3256 have been wounded across Egypt.

Friday mass rally

Tahrir Square remained relatively calm on Saturday morning after tens of thousands of demonstrators joined anti-military protests there on Friday, following a week of deadly clashes in which 41 people have perished in Cairo and elsewhere.

Tensions have risen in Egypt in the lead-up to parliamentary elections, due to start on Monday. Amid the ongoing turmoil, the governing Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) asked Ganzouri, 78, a prime minister under deposed president Hosni Mubarak, to head a new cabinet.

"Previous cabinets over the past 60 years were given many powers by the president of the republic," Ganzouri said on Friday in his first public statement after his appointment.

But he had been granted "much more powers" than past predecessors, said Ganzouri, who served as Mubarak's prime minister between 1996 and 1999.

Protesters in Tahrir Square quickly rejected his appointment, saying he was not the man to lead a transition to democracy.

"I think he was popular in his era, and successful. He did good during his period, but this is not his time," Abdullah Ahmed 22, a university student, said.

Meanwhile, about 5,000 supporters of the military staged their own demonstration on Friday several miles north of Tahrir Square in the district of Abbassiyah, not far from the defense ministry building.

"Waving giant Egyptian flags and chanting slogans praising Tantawi, the protesters filled every inch of free space under the Abbassiyah bridge, some even lined up along its ramps despite the passing traffic," Al Jazeera's Malika Bilal reported from Cairo, referring to Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads the SCAF.

"The army and the people are one hand," they yelled in unison, the sound of drums and car horns adding to the chorus of sounds.

Elections 'on schedule'

Ganzouri's appointment was the latest in a series of efforts by the military to appease protesters without meeting their main demand of stepping down immediately.

Ganzouri replaces Essam Sharaf, who resigned this week after nearly nine months in office amid deadly clashes between police and protesters.

Egypt's military rulers met separately with Mohamed ElBaradei and Amr Moussa, the state news agency reported. Following the meeting both issued a statement stressing the Egypt's elections should be held on time.

The military has said parliamentary elections will be held on schedule despite the unrest in Cairo and several other cities to the north and south of the capital.

Voting in each phase of the three-stage parliamentary election will be held over two days instead of one, the SCAF announced on Friday.

Voting starts on Monday and concludes in March, meaning that Ganzouri could be prime minister only until a new government is formed following the seating of a new legislature.

Demonstrators have vowed not to leave Tahrir Square until the generals step down in favors of a civilian presidential council. Their show of resolve resembles that of the rallies which forced Mubarak to relinquish power.

Thousands of protesters also took to the streets in other cities on Friday, including at least 10,000 in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and smaller crowds in Luxor and Assiut in southern Egypt.

Decline of trust

The military has rejected calls to immediately step down, saying its claim to power is supported by the warm welcome given to troops who took over the streets from the discredited police early in the anti-Mubarak uprising as well as an overwhelming endorsement for constitutional amendments they proposed in a March referendum.

Tantawi has offered another referendum on whether his military council should step down immediately.

Such a vote, activists say, would divide the nation and likely open the door for a deal between the military and political groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt's largest and best organised group, the Brotherhood was empowered after the fall of Mubarak, regaining legitimacy after spending nearly 60 years as an outlawed group.

A survey of voter trust in the military, conducted for Al Jazeera by Vote Compass, showed a sharp decline since the country erupted into protest in January, but also suggested that many Egyptians still believe the army is a source of stability.

 

PHOTO  CAPTION

Egyptian protesters hold a large national flag with Arabic writing that reads, "Jan. 25

Al Jazeera