Tantawi promise 'unconvincing', Cairo battles on

A protester throws rocks towards riot police along a road which leads to the Interior Ministry near Tahrir Square  Egyptian police are clashing with anti-government protesters for a fifth day in Cairo as a rights group raised the overall death toll from the current unrest to 38. Tens of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square rejected a promise by Egypt's military ruler to speed up a presidential election to the first half of this year.
Egyptians want Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi to step down immediately in favor of an interim civilian council, most likely to be headed by the opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei.
Wednesday's street battles were centreed around the heavily fortified Interior Ministry, near the square which is now synonymous with the Egyptian Revolution.
An Egyptian rights group known for its research of victims of police violence says the number of protesters killed in clashes nationwide since Saturday is 38, nine more than the Health Ministry's death toll.
Less than two hours after the speech by Egypt’s military ruler Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, clashes erupted again on Mohammed Mahmoud Street, a sign that activists and politician say indicates that the nation’s military rulers are following the former regime’s failed strategy to remain in power.
Eyewitnesses and doctors at a makeshift field hospital said there were an invisible substance causing suffocation and inflammation of the eyes. Reports of protesters fainting were widespread, a report carried by Egypt’s Al-Masry Al-Youm said on Wednesday.
One man was killed in clashes early on Wednesday in the second city Alexandria, one of several towns that saw unrest.
Police have been locked in sporadic clashes with protesters demanding the end of military rule, according to AFP.
Police have denied using live ammunition but most of the dead in the preceding five days of protest have had bullet wounds, medics say. And demonstrators have shown off cartridge casings they say come from weapons used by the authorities.
“We will stay here until the field marshal leaves and a transitional council from the people takes over,” Abdullah Galal, 28, a computer sales manager, told the Reuters news agency as people set up tents across the sprawling Tahrir traffic interchange which has become the abiding symbol of this year’s “Arab Spring” revolts.
A stream of motorbikes and ambulances ferried away the injured from the skirmishing on the outskirts of the protest, while at the centre of the square a mood of quiet occupation set in as blankets were brought out and small bonfires lit.
Tens of thousands of protesters massed in Tahrir Square on Tuesday to demand a transition to civilian rule.
Before Tantawi’s speech, Egypt's ruling military council held a five-hour crisis meeting with nearly 12 political party representatives and presidential hopefuls earlier on Tuesday. They agreed that a new government would be formed and that presidential elections would be held by the end of June, about six months sooner than planned.
Egypt’s army chief, seeking to defuse street protests, promised a swifter handover to civilian rule but failed to convince thousands of hardcore demonstrators, some of whom battled police through the night.
Confirming Egypt’s first free parliamentary election in decades will start on Monday, the ruling military council also accepted the resignation of the civilian prime minister and his cabinet, who had incensed democrats with a short-lived proposal that the army remain beyond civilian control under any new constitution.
Parliamentary elections will take till January to complete. It is not clear how a referendum on military rule might be organised, nor what alternative might be proposed until June’s presidential vote.
But Tantawi angered many of the youthful demonstrators on Cairo’s Tahrir Square and in other cities by suggesting a referendum on whether military rule should end earlier - a move many saw as a ploy to appeal to the many Egyptians who fear further upheaval and to divide those from the young activists.
“Leave! Leave!” came the chants in Cairo, according to Reuters, and, in an echo of February’s chorus: “The people want to topple the marshal.”
Long into the night, while small groups on the fringes skirmished with police in clouds of teargas, those occupying the main square sang: “He must go! We won't go!”
The field marshal, hanged in effigy on Tahrir Square in a visual echo of Mubarak’s final days, seems intent on preserving the armed forces’ vast business interests built up over six decades of effective military rule. But there was no renewal of earlier heavy-handed efforts to clear the area.
As Tantawi spoke, Egypt's outgoing cabinet, whose resignation was officially accepted by the SCAF on Tuesday, posted a message on its Facebook page announcing that security forces would be withdrawn from the vicinity of Tahrir Square.
But neither the cabinet's announcement nor Tantawi's speech ended the street fighting, which continued to rage on the side streets leading from Tahrir Square to the Interior Ministry.
Riot police from the Central Security Forces, backed by soldiers, fired tear gas and rubber rounds to disperse mobs of young men using rocks and petrol bombs in an attempt to force their way throughbarricades and reach the ministry.
There were similar scenes in Alexandria, Egypts second biggest city, where protesters repeatedly tried to reach the local police headquarters and fought pitched battles with security forces.
Tantawi, 76 and defence minister under Mubarak for two decades, appeared hesitant, speaking in field uniform, as he told the 80 million Egyptians his army did not want power:
“The army is ready to go back to barracks immediately if the people wish that through a popular referendum, if need be.”
Many of the protesters saw the suggestion of a referendum, vague in its content, as a ploy to split the nation:
“He is trying to say that, despite all these people in Tahrir, they don’t represent the public,” said 32-year-old Rasha, one of dozens huddled around a radio in the nearby Cafe Riche, a venerable Cairo landmark. “He wants to pull the rug from under them and take it to a public referendum.”
A military source said Tantawi’s referendum offer would come into play “if the people reject the field marshal’s speech,” but did not explain how the popular mood would be assessed.
“We can’t trust what he says. The ball has been in the military council’s court for months, and they didn’'t do anything," Ibtisam al-Hamalawy, 50, told AFP.
"Tantawi is Mubarak, copy pasted. He’s Mubarak in a military uniform,” said Ahmed Mamduh, an accountant.
Tantawi may calculate that most Egyptians, unsettled by dizzying change, do not share the young protesters’ appetite for breaking from the army’s familiar embrace just yet.        
For many Egyptians, trapped in a daily battle to feed themselves and their families, the political demands of some of those they view as young idealists are hard to fathom:
“I have lost track of what the demands are,” said Mohammed Sayed, 32, a store clerk in central Cairo as the capital went about its normal business before the start of what protesters had hoped might be a “million man march” on Tuesday.
“If you talk to the people in Tahrir, they have no clue,” added Sayed. “I don’t know where the country is headed. I’m worried about my life.”
On the square, however, demonstrators believed the army’s reluctance to cede power could see an escalation, as activists tried to complete what some call an “unfinished revolution”:
“All they are doing now is forcing people to escalate,” said Mohammed, 23, a financial analyst. “They are leaving. There is no question about that.”
“This opens the door for instability.”
Using a computer analogy, protester Abdullah Galal said: “There are many viruses in the system. It needs to be cleaned out entirely. We want to delete, reformat and reinstall ... We need to change the regime like they did in Tunisia and Libya.”
Criticism of the military has grown in recent days. Amnesty International said the SCAF had "been responsible for a catalogue of abuses which in some cases exceeds the record of Hosni Mubarak".
In the report published on Tuesday, the UK-based human-rights watchdog said Egypt's military rulers had "completely failed to live up their promises to Egyptians to improve human rights".
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s best-organised political force, joined the talks, which also included presidential hopeful and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and the head of the liberal Wafd party Sayyed Badawi.
Possibe presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei accused the security forces of carrying out a “massacre.”
Sources told Al Jazeera news that the SCAF had asked Mohamed ElBaradei, a presidential hopeful and opposition politician, to form a new interim government. But ElBaradei offered no public response and reportedly refused to attend the crisis meeting between the SCAF and political forces.
He was said to be hesitating over assurances regarding his authority to choose cabinet ministers.
The Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party had said it would not join Tuesday’s protest over its “desire not to pull people towards fresh bloody confrontations with the parties that are seeking more tension.”
Several politicians, including ElBaradei, have urged the military to review its plans for the transfer of power to civilians, by organising a presidential election before the parliamentary polls due to begin next Monday and last several months.
The Muslim Brotherhood, although highly critical of the military rulers, opposes any postponement of the legislative vote, feeling it is in a strong position.
The Brotherhood was the only major political group that declared it would not be at Tuesday's demonstration. In a statement, the group said it did not want to be involved in a protest that could delay the impending vote for the lower house of parliament, scheduled for Monday.
Many Egyptians and outside analysts believe the Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, will win a large plurality, if not a majority.
The military is also under international pressure to halt the violence, including from the United States.
The United States, which gives Egypt’s military $1.3 billion a year in aid, called for an end to the “deplorable” violence in Egypt and said elections there must go forward.
“We are deeply concerned about the violence. The violence is deplorable. We call on all sides to exercise restraint,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon urged the military council to “guarantee” civil liberties and deplored the deaths in the clashes.
The unrest has knocked Egypt’s markets. The benchmark share index EGX30 has fallen 11 percent since Thursday, hitting its lowest level since March 2009. The Egyptian pound fell to its weakest against the dollar since January 2005.
Political uncertainty has gripped Egypt since Mubarak’s fall, while sectarian clashes, labor unrest, gas pipeline sabotage and a gaping absence of tourists have paralyzed the economy and prompted a widespread yearning for stability.