Saturday, March 05, 2011

Egypt’s new prime minister told thousands of demonstrators in Tahrir Square Friday he was committed to the goals of their revolution and promised to take to the streets in protest if he could not deliver.
In another development, Egypt’s military rulers have set a March 19 date for a referendum on constitutional amendments that will open up competition for the position of the presidency held by Mubarak for three decades, the government announced Friday.

The new prime minister, Essam Sharaf, was picked by Egypt’s military rulers Thursday to replace Ahmad Shafiq. Shafiq was the last premier to be named by Mubarak, and his resignation was among the major opposition demands.

Sharaf’s name had been recommended as a candidate for the post of prime minister by leading reformist Mohamed ElBaradei. Sharaf also was supported by youth activists demanding change.
“I am here to draw my legitimacy from you. You are the ones to whom legitimacy belongs,” Sharaf told the estimated 10,000 demonstrators in Tahrir Square.

“I have been entrusted with a heavy mission and need patience, will and resolve,” he said.
“The mission that I am trying to realize, with all my heart, is your goals,” he continued, adding that the day when he could not, he would join the protesters in the square.
He addressed protester demands for the reform of security services whose reputation for brutality had helped fuel the revolt against Mubarak.

“I pray to God that I see an Egypt where free opinions are voiced outside [prison] cells and security agencies are in the service of the nation.”
“Take the oath, take the oath, take the oath,” chanted the crowd, urging Sharaf to take the oath of office in front of them. He declined to do so before being carried away on protesters’ shoulders.
Sharaf’s appearance in Tahrir Square showed “political intelligence,” said Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

“It is a good start but whether the masses will accept him still needs time,” he said. Sharaf is expected to make changes to the Cabinet in which the ministries of foreign affairs, the interior and justice remain in the hands of Mubarak appointees.
Ayman Nour, an opposition figure, said Sharaf was “on the right track.”

“But we wished he had spoken about his agenda and his plans about emergency law and the state security establishment,” Nour, who ran against Mubarak for the presidency in 2005, said.
A protester in Tahrir Square, 44-year-old weapon factory worker Nasser Fahmy said: “Shafiq is a cultured technocrat of the first degree but unfortunately he came in at the wrong time and he cracked, with Sharaf it’s different, I think he can carry the load.”

Housewife, Magda Kandil, said she was in Tahrir Sqaure to demand “a presidential council, the removal of the state security body, the election of a committee to make a new constitution. I would give Sharaf a month to fulfill them and if he did not I will come back to Tahrir.”

The protesters had planned the Friday rally to press for Shafiq’s resignation. When he stepped down a day earlier, they said they would go ahead with their gathering to celebrate what they consider the latest victory for the 18-day uprising.
They also chanted slogans against Moammar Gadhafi, and one protester held a picture of the Libyan leader crossed out with the word “mad” plastered over it.

Elsewhere, protesters in the northern Sinai took to the streets demanding the release of scores of detainees and prisoners, saying that many are being held without charge or are still incarcerated despite finishing their sentence.
Thousands marched in the city of Al-Arish and other smaller towns. A few hundred blocked the road to the compound of the Multinational Forces and Observation – an independent force created by Egypt and Israel to monitor their border in the Sinai after their 1979 peace deal. – Agencies