As anti-regime rallies in Egypt entered their third week, embattled President Hosni Mubarak attempted to defuse mounting public anger by setting up a panel to oversee key constitutional and legislative amendments that will change election rules and limit presidential term to enable a "peaceful" power transition.
"Nothing will move us. We only have one-point agenda to see the back of despot Mubarak," Shady al-Ghazali Harb, who has been elected by the youths leading the protests to be one of their representatives in talks with the regime, said. "We have waited for 30 years for this momentous event and we won't let it go," he said, adding the reforms can follow. His comments came as new Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that 82-year-old Mubarak had formed a committee that would oversee constitutional and legislative amendments.
"A clear road map has been put in place with a set timetable to realise the peaceful and organised transfer of power," Suleiman, who is leading the negotiations with opposition groups, said on state TV. "The president welcomed the national consensus, confirming that we are putting our feet on the right path to getting out of the current crisis," he said. President Mubarak signed a decree for the formation of the constitutional commission which will oversee constitutional amendments, and required legislative amendments, he said. He said the President also tasked the Prime Minister with establishing a "follow up committee" to implement the decisions taken by parties involved in the national dialogue.
Notwithstanding a series of concessions offered by Mubarak's regime like pay hikes, a free media and promise of lifting of emergency curbs, the protesters on a historic sit-in at the Tahrir (Liberation) Square in the heart of Cairo vowed to intensify their struggle till they end his 30-year rule. The youngsters, who have been at the vanguard of the revolution at the Tahrir Square, say that the movement is led by educated and middle class and is not in the hands of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, which held talks with the regime to end the crisis.
The sops by Mubarak like 15 per cent pay hike for some six million public employees did not seem to deter the youths camping for last 15 days at the Tahrir Square, the hub of unrelenting anti-government protests. At least 297 people have been killed in protests since January 28, Human Rights Watch said, adding that the real death toll is likely to be significantly higher. "Mubarak has to go and true democracy has to be restored in Egypt, the ancient citadel of civilisation," Shady al-Ghazali
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