REPORTS LAST night of an agreement by Egypt’s military authorities to speed up the transition to civilian rule and to proceed with scheduled elections due to start on Monday appear to mark an important victory for the country’s democratic forces. Following a meeting with opposition leaders, participants reported a deal to accept the resignation of prime minister Essam Sharaf’s cabinet, its replacement within days with a broadly based national salvation government, and a pledge to bring forward the presidential elections to June to allow a transfer of power to a new democratic government in July.
In the nine months since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak an uneasy stand-off between the army and police and the Egyptian people has flared regularly into bouts of considerable violence. Much of it inflicted by the police, some by proxy, thugs operating on their behalf. But popular mistrust of the army’s intentions was largely restrained, held back in abeyance – the majority willing to believe their professions of democratic intent and to give them the benefit of the doubt, a chance to demonstrate good intentions, to usher in a democratic transition. It was never to be.
Now, three days of fighting between police and demonstrators on the edge of Cairo’s Tahrir Square have finally lifted the veil for the majority on the real nature of brutal institutions that appear to have no real intentions of ceding to civilian rule. They continue to rule in the same old ways of mass arrests – 12,000 so far – and phoney trials. Torture is reportedly rife to the point where Amnesty International yesterday accused the regime of exceeding even Mubarak’s excesses. Anger against the military council exploded this month after a cabinet proposal to set out constitutional principles that would permanently shield the army from civilian oversight.
In the last three days at least 36 have died, mostly from live fire on young people armed at worst with stones and petrol bombs, and more than 1,250 have been wounded. Demonstrations spread to Alexandria, Ismailiya, and Al-Arish, while Tahrir Square last night drew hundreds of thousands.
If the army is as good as its word the lengthy elections will start that transition process on Monday although many of the young militants on the square were last night still highly sceptical, demanding the resignation of the head of the army and a full purge of the system. They have every reason to be sceptical.