FRI 29 - 3 - 2024
 
Date: Jun 27, 2011
Source: The Daily Star
U.S. senators say a quick transition in Egypt possible

By Tarek El-Tablawy
Agencies

 

CAIRO: Egypt’s military rulers are committed to a quick transition to civilian administration, two leading U.S. senators said Sunday after meeting the general who heads the ruling council.
John McCain, R-Arizona and John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, visiting Egypt at the head of a U.S. business delegation, said it was in America’s national security interests to see the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak succeed.
They said Washington was not interested in dictating policy to Egypt. Instead, the focus is on finding ways to help the Arab world’s most populous nation boost its economy and address the needs of its people.


The two senators met Field Marshall Mohammad Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak’s former defense minister who now heads Egypt’s Supreme Military Council.
McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Forces committee, said Tantawi “again indicated his absolute commitment to a transition to a civilian government at the earliest possible time after the elections have taken place.”


The military has pledged to hand over power to a civilian government after parliamentary elections slated for September, to be followed roughly a month later with a presidential vote. But some Egyptians have advocated delaying the votes, saying the military rulers are pushing too quickly for elections when few have had a chance to form political parties or assess a diverse field of potential presidential candidates.
Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the military rulers are “very anxious to get out of the business of governing, and they want to go back to doing what they were doing.”
“They want a civilian government to take over the responsibilities,” he said.


Mubarak handed over authority to the military in mid-February after an 18-day mass uprising that cast what was once viewed as the Arab world’s most stable nation into a period of chaos. Since then, the country has been struggling to restore some semblance of normalcy and kick-start an economy that, prior to the revolution, had been projected to grow by almost 6 percent for the fiscal year ending June 30.


Ahead of planned parliamentary election in September, fractures have appeared within Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood was the most powerful and organized opposition party before President Hosni Mubarak was ousted Feb 11 in a popular uprising. It had been expected to win big in parliamentary elections set for September.
Yesterday a senior member of the Brotherhood says he is forming a new political party Last week, several young members broke off and launched a rival to the Brotherhood’s main Freedom and Justice Party.
Khaled Dawoud, a senior Brotherhood figure, said Sunday he and other members are forming a separate party, Al-Riyada, Arabic for The Pioneers. He risks forfeiting Brotherhood membership as the group has banned members from forming separate parties.
 



 
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