Egypt's youth leaders vow continued protests

Between a reluctant military still in power and religious parties gaining steam, upcoming elections in Egypt are murky.

Evan Hill
Al-Jazeera

"Ahead of what organisers hope will be a huge march in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, one of the young leaders of Egypt's new protest movement has vowed to continue escalating demonstrations, ranging from sit-ins to mass civil disobedience, if the country's military rulers don't accede to protesters' evolving demands. "What we call the forces of evil are still there," said Ahmed Maher, the 30-year-old co-founder of the April 6th Youth Movement, which helped lead the upheaval that began on January 25. Members of the old regime are reconstituting themselves, high-ranking officers in the feared Interior Ministry remain free from prosecution, and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces – which has run the country since ex-President Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February – is becoming less and less responsive, Maher told an audience at the Brookings Doha Centre in Qatar on Monday.....

The hardened tone comes after weeks of lessening goodwill between the people and the army. Military police have recently been accused of baseless arrests, abuse and torture, incommunicado detentions and slapdash trials that may result in multi-year prison sentences for protesters. Meanwhile, the unelected civilian leadership led by former Transportation Minister Essam Sharaf has drafted a law, subject to the military's approval, that would give the state power to ban strikes and protests – a nod toward both the generals' and the ruling cliques' interest in protecting their business interests.....

In Cook's view, Egypt's near-term politics could unfold three ways: An ideal liberal democracy with checks and balances, a old regime under a new name, or a period of unstable pluralism. The ideal democracy – a "rainbows and unicorns" scenario – is unlikely, and a reconstitution of Mubarak's long-ruling National Democratic Party only slightly less so, Cook said. Most probable is the creation of a vigorous but unstable political atmosphere with a constantly changing constitution, a flashback to the 1930s and 1940, when Egypt witnessed multiple vying political parties but suffered from a constantly dissolving parliament......

Maher's task is perhaps easier, since April 6th isn't interested in forming a party – at least not yet. He sees the organisation acting as a political watchdog and pressure group for the next two to five years, harnessing its power to put thousands of demonstrators in the streets on short notice. The movement will support whoever pushes its goals, which include putting members of the old regime, such as Mubarak himself, on trial. "We don't care about who, we care about how," he said."