Monday, February 14, 2011

Marwa Awad and Dina Zayed
Reuters

CAIRO: Egypt’s new military rulers said Sunday they had dissolved Parliament and suspended the Constitution and would govern only for six months or until elections took place, following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
Troops, some wielding sticks, earlier took control of Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the fulcrum of the 18 days of protests that swept Mubarak from power. That let traffic flow through central Cairo as the army struggled to return life to normal.

The Higher Military Council, which took over after a revolt that changed modern Egyptian history, promised a referendum on constitutional amendments.
The initial response from opposition figures and protest leaders to the Council’s statement was overwhelmingly positive. “Victory, victory,” chanted pro-democracy activists in Tahrir Square. “More is needed, more is needed,” others yelled. “It is a victory for the revolution,” said Ayman Nour, who challenged Mubarak for the presidency in 2005 and was later jailed. “I think this will satisfy the protesters.”

Egypt’s Constitution was written with built-in guarantees to keep Mubarak in power, polls were rigged in favour of his ruling party and opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood were sometimes harassed, sometimes tolerated.

“They have definitely started to offer us what we wanted,” said activist Sally Touma, reflecting a mix of caution and optimism among the protesters.
The suspension of the Constitution effectively puts Egypt under martial law – where the military makes the laws and enforces them in military tribunals. The ruling council is expected to clarify the issue in upcoming statements and the role of civilian courts remains unclear.

Judge Hisham Bastawisi, a reformist judge, said the latest measures “should open the door for free formation of political parties and open the way for any Egyptian to run for presidential elections,” which the constitutional amendments are expected to do.

Hossam Bahgat, director of the non-governmental Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the military’s steps were positive but warned that Egypt was on uncharted legal ground.
“In the absence of a constitution, we have entered a sort of ‘twilight zone’ in terms of rules, so we are concerned,” he said. “We are clearly monitoring the situation and will attempt to influence the transitional phase so as to respect human rights.”

The ruling council said it would run the country for six months, or until presidential and parliament elections can be held. It said it was forming a committee to amend the Constitution and set the rules for a popular referendum to endorse the amendments.

“In a country like Egypt, with a pharaonic legacy, having no president and no head of state is not easy,” said Amr al-Shobaky, a member of the Committee of Wise Men – a self-appointed group of prominent figures who are allied with the protesters.

The military rulers and the caretaker government set as a top priority the restoration of security. The caretaker government held its first meeting since the president was ousted and before it began, workers removed a giant picture of Mubarak from the meeting room.
How to handle policing has become a pressing issue for the government.

Interior Minister Mahmoud Wagdy has said Egypt needs “the speedy return of the police to duty,” saying 13,000 inmates who escaped from prison early in the uprising were still on the run.
Mohamed ElBaradei, a retired U.N. diplomat who has been put forward as a reformist spokesman, urged the Egyptian Army to bring in civilians to take part in the transitional process: “We need heavy participation by the civilians,” he told CNN. “It cannot be the army running the show.”
Protest organizers were forming a Council of Trustees to defend the revolution and urge swift reform from a military intent on restoring law and order during the transition.

Mahmoud Nassar, a youth movement leader, said: “The army has moved far along to meet the people’s demands and we urge it to release all political prisoners who were taken before and after Jan. 25 revolution. Only then will we call off the protests.”

But the military was clear in its instructions for Tahrir. “We do not want any protesters to sit in the square after today,” Mohammad Ibrahim Mustafa Ali, head of military police, said as soldiers removed protesters’ tents from the square.

People chanted “peacefully, peacefully” as soldiers and military police in red berets moved in to disperse them. Scuffles broke out and some soldiers lashed out with sticks. Protesters said soldiers detained about 50 people.
Police officers, emboldened by Mubarak’s downfall, gathered outside the Interior Ministry to demand higher pay. Workers from the health and culture ministries staged protests as Egyptians began venting pent-up frustrations.
Thousands of workers have staged strikes, sit-ins and protests over pay and conditions at firms and government agencies in fields such as steel, textiles, telecoms, railways, post offices, banks and oil and pharmaceutical companies.
The military is expecte

d Monday to ban meetings by labor unions or professional syndicates, effectively forbidding strikes, and to tell all Egyptians to get back to work. There will also be a warning from the military against those who create “chaos and disorder,” an army source said, adding the army would, however, acknowledge the right to protest. – Agencies