Military Council accepts Sharaf government resignation

Thousands of Egyptian protesters remained camped in the square on Tuesday Thousands of Egyptian protesters remained camped in the square on Tuesday, clashing with police trying to force them to leave.AP news agency reports that demonstrators hoisted a giant Egyptian flag and chanted slogans, evidence that the resignation offer failed to quell the spreading unrest.
After a Crisis Management meeting of Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf’s government and another with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), a government spokesman announced the civilian government's resignation to SCAF on Monday evening.
The move followed three days of violence centred in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square, where medical officials have estimated 35 people have been killed and more than 2000 injured.
“The government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has handed its resignation to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” said Mohammed Hegazy, the cabinet spokesman.
Expressing “deep regret over the painful events”, the SCAF however offered to continue working until the resignation was accepted.
Egypt's state-TV says three people were killed overnight in the eastern city of Ismailia.
There are still unanswered questions regarding the use of live ammunition in yesterday's riots. The Guardian reported that researchers from the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights had confirmation that the bodies of four people killed by live bullets were in the city's main morgue. The victims were all aged between 19 and 27.
Authorities however continue to deny that live ammunition has been fired.
Meanwhile, the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood stated it would not participate "in any sit-in or protest that may lead to more confrontation", the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported today. The Islamist movement's Freedom and Justice party, perceived to be frontrunner in the elections, believed the turmoil might delay the poll and the transition to democracy. It announced it would enter talks with the military leaders aimed at ending the clashes. Saad al-Katatni, secretary general of the party, said: "The SCAF has called a meeting [for today] and we will participate."
 Egypt’s military rulers were reported to be considering assigning presidential hopeful Dr Mohammed ElBaradei to form a national salvation government following the resignation of Sharaf's government, an Egyptian daily reported on Tuesday citing political sources.
The sources told Egypt’s al-Youm al-Sabe daily that the members of the new proposed government have not been decided yet.
ElBaradei, the former chief of the U.N. atomic watchdog, on Monday denounced violence against protesters and called for a national salvation government. He called on the SCAF to meet the demands of protesters that include the cancelling of military trials of civilians.
State television quoted a military source as saying the ruling military council had rejected the resignation, but Information Minister Osama Heikal told MENA the matter had not yet been decided.
Sharaf's resignation, if accepted, threatens to derail parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28 - the first polls since Mubarak was toppled in February.
But the military council is seeking agreement on a new prime minister before it accepts Sharaf’s resignation, a military source told Reuters news agency.
The source said no formal announcement would be made until the ruling military council had agreed on the candidate. He did not provide further details.
An official source at the Interior Ministry alleged that Interior Minister General Mansour al-Issawi individually resigned to the Prime Minister.
As soon as news of the resignation reached the Tahrir protesters, whose numbers had swelled to close to 100,000, the square erupted in massive cheers, whistles and applause. Immediately, however, the demonstrators declared that the government's resignation fell well short of their demands, taking up the chant: "The people want the overthrow of the Field Marshal" in reference to Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the head of the SCAF and Minister of Defence.
In turn, 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."
The SCAF -- which took over the country when Hosni Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising in February -- 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 SCAF expressed its "deep sorrow over the deaths and injuries during the recent painful events, and offered its deepest condolences to the families of the victims." Also, it ordered security forces "to take all necessary measures to secure the demonstrators and to exercise the utmost restraint."
The SCAF announced that it had asked the Justice Ministry to form a fact-finding commission in order to investigate the incident and provide investigation results "as soon as possible" in order to take necessary legal measures against the perpetrators of violence.
In the meantime, the demonstrators continued Mohamed Mahmoud street battles. There were reports of more hit and run attacks between protestors and the security forces, after setting fire to tires in the heart of the street claimedly to minimize the effect of tear gas .
The resignation came on the sidelines of the emergency meeting, chaired by Sharaf in the presence of his two deputies Ali El-Selmi and Hazem Beblawi, and the ministers of Tourism, Media, Justice, and Interior, to discuss the current developments in Tahrir Square, and to find out how to manage the demonstrations crisis. Protests spread to a number of governorates including Alexandria, Suez and Ismailia.
The meeting came about as a result of SCAF's earlier demand on Sunday, which authorized the government to rapidly contain the crisis and put the alleged perpetrators to trial. The meeting also discussed constitutional draft, known as ‘El-Selmi Document.’
SCAF approved a law that allows a political embargo to be placed on Mubarak regime-affiliated figures, who are accused of corrupting political life, state TV said on Monday.
Later on Monday, 38 movements and coalitions, including the Revolutionary Youth Coalition and the April 6 Youth Movement called upon Egyptians to participate in the million-man protest entitled ‘National Rescue,’ organised in Tahrir Square tomorrow November 22.
The groups are to demand the dismissal of Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's government and form a new salvation government with complete authority to run the state during the rest of the transitional period.
They emphasised that the parliamentary elections must not pass the April 2012 deadline. They also demanded to restructure the Ministry of the Interior and put those who killed protestors under trial.
The Muslim Brotherhood stated it held the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces responsible for all that happened; and and called for halting the violence against demonstrators and the immediate withdrawal of troops.
According to the statement, of which 'Arabstoday' possesses a copy, it called to immediately interrogate each person who ordered or carried out the attacks on protestors, and also to announce a clear timetable for the handover of power to an elected civilian authority no later than mid-2012.
The statement appealed to remove the current transition government, as the second party responsible for the bloody events, immediately after the completion of parliamentary elections.
Meanwhile, presidential hopeful Amr Moussa warned that those who call for the toppling of the military council aim mainly at spreading more chaos and unrest in Egypt.
Moussa said that what is currently happening in Egypt is definitely not a new revolution, adding there is a kind of misunderstanding due to weakness of the government and the slowness in implementing its decisions. Moussa called on the military council to specify a timeline for handing over the powers to a civilian authority.
On the ground, the field hospital in Tahrir Square received hundreds of wounded as a result of the firing and tear gas shelling by security forces.
In Ebad Al-Rahman mosque, which becomes a makeshift hospital in Tahrir Square, Dr. Hesham Ibrahem, ENT Specialist said to 'Arabstoday': “The hospital receives an injured person every two minuets. We can no longer absorb all of these numbers. People come with all sorts of injuries such as cuts, hundreds of suffocation cases as a result of tear gas, irritation of the nerves , fractures.”