Bowing to pressure from the street and an increasing international sentiment that Egypt might be in better shape if he cut his losses, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has announced he will not run for re-election, CNBC reports But will this be enough to satisfy the protesters? He is not saying he will step down before his time in office runs out:
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Tuesday he would not leave Egypt although he would step down from the presidency at the end of his term, due to end when the country holds a presidential election in September.
“The Hosni Mubarak who speaks to you today is proud of his achievements over the years in serving Egypt and its people,” he said in an address broadcast on state television.
“This is my country. This is where I lived, I fought and defended its land, sovereignty and interests, and I will die on its soil,” he said.
He also said pledged to implement a series of reforms, including calling on the judiciary to combat corruption, one of the complaints of protesters who have pushed him to announce an end to his presidency later this year.
His speech came shortly after President Obama’s special envoy delivered a message to the embattled Egyptian president about the need to prepare for an “orderly transition” of power in the country, a U.S. official said.
Wisner also made contact with prominent Egyptian political activist Mohamed ElBaradei to discuss a political transition.
ElBaradei, the retired head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has demanded Mubarak quit office and said he was ready to play a role in any shift to a democratic system in Egypt.
“Our embassy in Cairo maintains an active outreach to a wide range of political and civil society representatives in Cairo, and the mission has been especially busy in the last several days to help convey our strong support for an orderly transition,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
“One such contact was between the ambassador and Mohamed ElBaradei today,” it added in the statement sent to Reuters in Cairo, referring to U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey.
The Telegraph’s subheadline flatly says the U.S. pushed Mubarak out:
Egypt protests: Washington forces Hosni Mubarak to step down
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was on Tuesday night forced by Washington to announce he would step down at elections later this year.
Here’s some of the article:
Mr Mubarak was due in the late evening to appear on state television to announce his departure, which followed mass demonstrations against his rule in Cairo and other major cities.
But he was likely to refuse to bow to demands by hundreds of thousands of protesters that he quit immediately.
Mr Mubarak was finally compelled to act after a direct intervention by Barack Obama. The US president sent a special envoy, Frank Wisner, to tell Mr Mubarak that he had lost support and that it was “critical” he oversee a transition to free and fair elections in September.
Western leaders have repeatedly expressed a desire for a controlled transfer of power. They had been alarmed by Mr Mubarak’s refusal to confirm that neither he nor his unpopular son Gamal would try to stand in September. This raised the risk of greater instability and the seizure of power by radical Islamist forces.
Meanwhile sweeping change continued to infect the whole Middle East region yesterday when King Abdullah of Jordan responded to street protests by sacking the government and pledging wide-ranging political reforms.
(Be sure to read THIS POST that appeared earlier on TMV about the danger that Obama could one day be remembered as the person who “lost Egypt”)
USA Today has this quote from Mubarak’s speech:
“I have spent enough time serving Egypt,” Mubarak said in his second public address since the protests erupted. He said that over the next few months “remaining of my current reign, I will work very hard to carry out all the necessary measures to transfer power.”
Deja vu? That part of Mubarak’s speech sounds a bit like Lyndon Johnson’s surprise announcement in 1968 that he would not seek re-election, at the height of the conflict over the Vietnam War:
The Guardian also notes the U.S. role:
Mubarak, effectively abandoned by the US in a day of fast moving developments, said he would not be a candidate for a seventh term but would remain in power to oversee reform and guarantee stability — a position that was immediately rejected by angry crowds and promised yet more drama in Egypt’s extraordinary crisis.
“In the few months remaining in my current term I will work towards ensuring a peaceful transition of power,” Mubarak said. “I have exhausted my life in serving Egypt and my people. I will die on the soil of Egypt and be judged by history” – a clear reference to the fate of Tunisia’s president who fled into exile last month.
Looking grave as he spoke on state TV in front of the presidential seal, Mubarak attacked those responsible for protests that had been “manipulated by political forces,” caused mayhem and chaos and endangered the “stability of the nation.”
In a defiant, finger-wagging performance the 82-year-old said he was always going to quit in September – a position he had never made public until now.
Opposition leaders had already warned throughout a dramatic eighth day of mass protests that only Mubarak’s immediate departure would satisfy them. Shortly before his address it emerged the US had urged him not to seek re-election in the face of unprecedented protests that have electrified and inspired an Arab world desperate for political and economic change.
The shift in Washington in effect withdrew US support for its closest Arab ally and linchpin of its Middle East strategy.
“May it be tonight, oh God,” chanted the crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as they waited to hear the historic speech.
Jay Bookman, writing on the Atlantic Constitution’s blog, thinks the protesters will say to the Egyptian prez: No dice:
I find it hard to believe that the protesters will accept that concession. If Mubarak and his regime remain in power, the chances of a free and fair election come next fall are slim. Things will be arranged to ensure that this dictator is replaced with another one, and this moment would be lost.
Furthermore, the fact that Mubarak felt compelled to go on television and pledge to step down — eventually — will be taken as a concession and a sign of weakness from a government not normally given to such signs. Rather than mollify the crowds, that’s likely to inspire and reassure them. Factions and individuals who had been waiting to see how the wind blows are also less likely now to stick it out with a president who has already announced he is leaving.
But time may be critical. The longer Mubarak clings to power, the more likely that his ouster will be chaotic and violent. Under those circumstances, those able and willing to apply the most violence are most likely to fill the power vacuum, and that’s an outcome that benefits neither Egypt nor the United States. A peaceful, negotiated transition with a caretaker government would raise the odds of an acceptable outcome.
Wired’s Spencer Ackerman thinks Mubarak wants “One More Crackdown for the Road”:
On the face of it, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak vowed to leave power on his own terms — not those of the protesters who’ve spent the past seven days demanding he step down. But looking at his just-finished speech a little deeper, Mubarak all but threatened one final crackdown on the dissidents who’ve upended his 30 years of rule.
Passive-aggressively, Mubarak told the cameras, “I did not intend to run for the coming presidency. I have exhausted my life serving Egypt and its people.” Riiiiiiiight.. He’ll spend “the few months remaining in my current term… ensuring the peaceful transition of power.”
Al Jazeera’s Egypt correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin tweets, “not enough 4 #Egypt protesters who respond w angry chants.” Among those chants: “Leave! Leave!” and “Revolution Until Death.”
That may be what Mubarak is counting on. His attempt to break the protesters by shutting off the internet and cellphone service failed. So he portrayed the protests as being hijacked by “outlaws” and described the Egyptian people as cowering subjects terrified by the revolution. “I instruct the police apparatus to shoulder its responsibilities,” Mubarak said, “and protect the citizens in absolute dignity … arrest the outlaws, those who caused the chaos.”
That sounds like an invitation for a crackdown. Although there has been some rioting, the protests have been largely peaceful. One protester in Cairo today even told Al Jazeera that her friends are starting a soccer tournament in the packed Tahrir Square. But if the police still consider Mubarak’s instructions to have the force of law, those protesters may soon be under assault if they don’t disperse. Will the Army defend the protesters against the police, after saying earlier that soldiers won’t open fire on civilians?
And, indeed, The Huffington Post’s Middle East Consultant Shirin Sadeghi also sees Mubarak’s comments most noteworthy for the threat:
But more troubling than Mubarak’s refusal to accept the people’s primary demand that he resign immediately were his repeated threats — moreso than in the first speech — against the troublemakers who are in the streets. His words seemed to single out only the bad seeds — “the looters, arsonists, and pillagers” but it is now public knowledge that many of these guys are paid thugs who work on behalf of the Mubarak regime to denigrate the image of the protesting masses.
Mubarak made it very clear in this second speech to the people that things are going to get bloody now and he’s the one who made that decision…
..[In his televised statement]He was furious at those who have “manipulated and taken advantage of the people’s peaceful demonstrations.” He called these manipulators “regretful” but never clearly indicated who they were. But the people of Egypt know exactly what he was saying and they are even angrier than before.
For Mubarak, it is now a waiting game wherein he will stretch the limits of the public’s patience as thin as he can, and take “security” measures into his own hands if things don’t proceed as he’d like. Each day in office will mean one more triumph for his ego but also one more triumph for the American, British and other backers who have sustained his throne of tyranny for so many decades.
They too, have been cornered into distancing themselves from a regime they were planning never to lose — it was to be one Mubarak taking the place of another until yet another person who cares less for his people’s welfare than his own interests can be positioned in power.
Similarly, the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff sees cluelessness in Cairo – -and in Washington:
So President Hosni Mubarak has announced that he won’t run for office again in the September elections. That would have been a historic decision if he had made it two weeks ago, and it might have avoided the present mess. But today, it’s too little, too late. And if the White House has devoted its political capital to getting Mubarak to agree to such a half-measure, then I fear that there’s a measure of cluelessness on both sides.
Now it’s true Mubarak did talk about moving up elections. If he had announced a specific date, that might have helped. But there is no trust for Mubarak, and a vague promise to step down at the end of his term, or possibly after early elections — will not placate the public. Moreover, there was a pugnaciousness to his speech that may inflame many people. He said that protesters had been exploited by those who sought to loot and disrupt Egypt, and he said that some factions were refusing his offer of dialogue. He pledged that he would die in Egypt, rather than seek exile.
I’m afraid that too many Egyptian and American officials have been spending their time talking to each other, and not enough time talking to grassroots Egyptians in Tahrir Square and elsewhere. Everybody I’ve interviewed in Tahrir has said that as a starting point, Mubarak has to resign. Now! People aren’t going to be placated by him saying that he won’t run again – especially since it was never clear that he planned to do so anyway.
Time has a different take on it:
By essentially stepping aside and not running for re-election in a vote that was originally scheduled for September, Mubarak may satisfy enough of a populace that has grown weary of lawlessness and shortages — enough to sap the street action of much of its power. Some political groups may even be happy if they are given Cabinet positions as part of an immediate sharing of power in a transition, further eroding opposition unity.
Protesters say they — and Egypt — have been profoundly changed by the past week’s experience, and many vow to maintain their almost nonstop demonstrations until the President goes. Yet Tuesday’s street-filling crescendo may be impossible to re-create. “It is a fiasco if the situation just stays like this,” says the well-known Egyptian actor Aser Yasin, who joined Tuesday’s protest in the square. “We have already won. But it is not just about winning. It is about rising up again afterward.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.