Egypt's fractured opposition movement has rallied together to emphatically reject talks with the ruling National Democratic party on political reform, insisting that Hosni Mubarak must stand down before any dialogue can begin. Whether Mubarak promising to step down at the next election, as was reported tonight, will satisfy them remains to be seen.
Former UN weapons inspector Mohamed ElBaradei, محمد مصطفى البرادعي, who has become a de facto leader of the opposition and met with the US ambassador to Egypt today, said no talks were possible while Mubarak remained in power. "I hope to see Egypt peaceful and that's going to require as a first step the departure of President Mubarak," the 68-year-old told al-Arabiya TV. "If President Mubarak leaves then everything else will progress correctly."
The decision to stall on entering any talks with the present regime suggests Egypt's dissident leaders are hoping to ride the wave of public anger against the government, which took many in the political establishment by surprise.
ElBaradei and other opposition figures are attempting to put themselves in a strong position to negotiate a transition to democracy if Mubarak falls.
Following a week of anti-government protests that have brought hundreds of thousands on to the streets, newly appointed vice-president Omar Suleiman said yesterday that he had been mandated by Mubarak to offer an olive branch to the long-marginalised opposition.
But after sacrificing some of their credibility by not giving more enthusiastic support to the demonstrations when they first erupted last week, a range of dissenting voices is now seeking to take a harder line with the regime.
"Omar Suleiman approached us, and we have rejected his approaches," Essam el-Erian, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, told the Guardian. "As long as Mubarak delays his departure, these protests will remain and they will only get bigger."
After years of division within organisations opposed to Mubarak, Egyptian opposition figures have now formed a coalition to try to capitalise on the huge and so far leaderless outpouring of fury. The Islamic Brotherhood, Egypt's main political Islamist group, has joined forces with El-Baradei's National Association for Change, along with other, smaller parties and representatives of the Coptic Christian community, calling their new coalition the National Committee for Following up the People's Demands.
Mustafa Naggar, a supporter of ElBaradei, said a request for talks with the coalition had come from Information Minister Anas Fiki and Mubarak's new prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, and had been turned down. "Our first demand is that Mubarak goes," confirmed Mohammed Al-Beltagi, a former Brotherhood parliamentarian and member of the new committee. "Only after that can dialogue start with the military establishment on the details of a peaceful transition to power."
However, critics of the formal opposition argue that the decision by these parties to sit back and watch how events unfold rather than take a more interventionist role was one that had been forced upon them. "With the opposition, it's a sense of 'hey guys, wait for me'," said Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian publisher and political analyst. "They did not start any of this, and now they are desperately playing catch-up."
He argued that the opposition had been weakened by its inability to control the protesters, who have acted without any prompting from established political forces. "If I was Omar Suleiman and I was serious about negotiating with an opposition figure, I would say, 'First, call the crowds off', which of course ElBaradei can't – barely anyone listened to him in Tahrir the other day, and they're not going to listen now.
"Most of these leaders have been left behind by events. Some of them understand the demographic time bomb that went off and changed the reality of Egypt, and hence might be able to reinvent themselves. The rest will sink with Mubarak forever. Mubarak's opposition is dying with him."
(source:guardian.co.uk)
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