CAIRO: Egyptians were urged to rally en masse on Tuesday to demand an end to military rule after days of bloody clashes threatened to derail next week’s first elections since former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

A day after the Cabinet offered to resign, in a move reportedly rejected by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), two more people were killed, bringing the death toll from clashes since Saturday to 26.

On the eve of the new protest, Egypt’s military-appointed Cabinet of civilian officials announced its resignation, but state television quoted a SCAF source as saying that this was rejected by the military.

“The government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has handed its resignation to the (ruling) Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” Cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said in a statement on Monday.

The SCAF “invited all the political and national forces for an emergency dialogue to look into the reasons behind the aggravation of the current crisis and ways to resolve it as quickly as possible,” added the statement, which was quoted by state media.

It said that it had asked the justice ministry to set up a committee to probe the violence, and called on “all forces and citizens to commit to (restoring) calm, and creating an atmosphere of stability with the goal of pursuing the political process.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s best-organized political force, said also on Tuesday that it would take part in the talks with the Army.

The Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party said earlier that it would not participate in Tuesday’s protest, a decision it said stemmed from its “desire not to pull people toward fresh bloody confrontations with the parties that are seeking more tension.”

Tuesday’s mass rally to demand the Army to cede power was called by the political forces that spearheaded the popular uprising that forced Mubarak out of office in February.

‘National salvation’ govt
Activists from the Coalition of Revolution Youth and the April 6 movement, among others, have called for the protest at 4 p.m. in Tahrir Square (10 p.m. in Manila), the epicenter of the anti-Mubarak rallies.

In a Facebook page for the rally, the groups called for the immediate resignation of Sharaf’s Cabinet and the formation of a “national salvation” government.

They also demanded elections for the presidency by April 2012 and a complete overhaul of the interior ministry.

Tens of thousands of people had packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Monday night after clashes continued for a third straight day between protesters and police in and around the square.

They greeted the news of the Cabinet’s resignation with indifference and called for the removal of the military rulers as clashes continued around the nearby interior ministry headquarters.

Riot police fired volleys of birdshot, rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators who used stones and gas bombs. Other protesters formed a corridor through which the injured were ferried into waiting ambulances.

Two people were killed on Tuesday morning in the Red Sea town of Ismailiya, doctors said, as state media reported that clashes also erupted in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.

Hundreds have been injured during the protests that have raged not only in Cairo, Alexandria, and Ismailiya, but also in the canal city of Suez.

Culture minister Emad Abu Ghazi earlier quit in protest over the government response to the demonstrations, he told the official Middle East News Agency.

The clashes first erupted on Saturday, a day after large crowds staged a peaceful anti-military mass rally at the square, resuming on Sunday and carrying on through the night into Monday.

There were heavy clashes on side streets leading to the interior ministry as protesters chanted, “The people want to topple the field marshal”—referring to Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak’s long-time defense minister who heads the SCAF.

The SCAF, in a statement read out on state television, said that it “regretted” what was happening and said that it was committed to the elections timetable.         

AFP