Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will not be stepping down as was widely expected, declaring his intention to stay in office until September in a speech on Thursday night.
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to listen to Mubarak’s recorded speech. The square was utterly quiet as he started, then erupted into anger as it became clear that he would not be leaving office.
In his speech, Mubarak said he would “delegate” responsibility to his vice president Omar Suleiman, indicating that he is not planning to leave. Suleiman addressed the nation and the crowd after Mubarak’s remarks.
Mubarak made some minor concessions about investigating violence during the protests and forming a committee to look at amendments to the constitution. He also said he would lift emergency law when the time is right.
As the president’s speech went on, the massive crowd’s attitude shifted from shock to anger, with some demonstrators taking off their shoes, waving them in the air in the highest form of offense. They are yelling, among other things, “Go! Go! Leave! Depart!” The situation is one of total disbelief and pandemonium.
Mubarak talked about his own service in the military, infused with much patriotism and nationalism, and the clear message that he sees himself as tied to Egypt’s future.
He said “Egypt will remain until I hand over the trust and banner,” and “I will not separate from the soil until I am buried underneath,” meaning that he plans to die in Egypt and not anywhere else.
“The current moment is not relating to my personality ... it is now relating to Egypt,” he said.
He spoke about the economy saying that Egypt has “suffered losses and damages, day by day,” since the protests began on Jan. 25. If the economy fails, he said “the youth who are calling for reform and change will be [its] first victims.”
He also reminded the nation that he was once young, just like them, and at that time he worked for “peace, stability, independence, and sovereignty of Egypt.”
‘Go Home’
Suleiman made it clear that he was there to carry out the will of the president, and that there had been no shift in power.
“I am committed to carry out whatever is necessary,” he said and called on the protesters to leave the streets and return things to normal in Egypt.
“I call on the youth of Egypt, the youth and heroes of Egypt, to go home, go back to work. The country needs your hand, let’s join hands.”
He also expressed in several ways that he felt the unrest was due to foreign influence, which he urged Egyptian youth not to follow. “Do not listen to the satellite television stations whose main purpose is fuel sedition and drive a wedge between the people,” said Suleiman.
He reiterated Mubarak’s plea for protesters to go home in order to restore “stability and peace to our citizens. And to restore the normal way of live to the Egyptian streets.”
Protesters had planned large-scale demonstrations for Friday, the only weekend day in Egypt, but whatever celebratory preparations they had were dashed by Mubarak’s refusal to resign. Those demonstrations will go ahead, and will indubitably ramp up in intensity given the anger unleashed by Mubarak’s speech.
