Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak ceded power Friday after 30 years in office, bowing to weeks of mass protests that paralyzed the country. Vice President Omar Suleiman announced the news on state television and said control over the affairs of state will be turned over to the military. "President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down as president and the higher council of the armed forces will run the affairs of the country," Suleiman said in a brief statement.
Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images
Egyptian anti-goverment demonstrators flood Cairo's landmark Tahrir Square early Friday.
The moment the announcement was made, Cairo's Tahrir Square erupted in celebration. People ran through the streets hugging each other and shouting, "Egypt is free!" and "The people have brought down the regime!"
"This is the greatest day of my life. The country has been liberated," opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei told The Associated Press.
The ruling National Democratic Party also has been dissolved and the recently appointed general-secretary of the party, Hossam Badrawi, has resigned.
Badrawi told al-Hayat TV that his was "a resignation from the position and from the party."
"The formation of new parties in a new manner that reflects new thinking is better for society now at this stage," he said.
Mubarak left Cairo on Friday as hundreds of thousands of enraged protesters swarmed across the capital and other major cities in Egypt demanding his resignation.
A local government official told The Associated Press on Friday that Mubarak was in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, some 250 miles from Cairo, where he has a palace.
Reports of the president's resignation came hours after the Egyptian military said it would support Mubarak's decision to remain in office through September elections.
The Armed Forces Supreme Council released a statement Friday endorsing the plan Mubarak unveiled Thursday night for constitutional changes and presidential elections and for transferring some powers to Vice President Omar Suleiman. The council also guaranteed that Egypt's hated emergency laws, imposed when Mubarak took power after the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat, would be lifted "immediately after the end of the current circumstances" — a reference to the mass protests.
The military also called for public services to resume and urged "the return of normal life in order to safeguard the achievements of our glorious people."
'We Expected The Army's Decision'
Undaunted, protesters streamed into Tahrir Square in central Cairo for what was expected to be the largest demonstration yet in weeks of anti-government displays. Crowds of protesters also gathered outside parliament, the headquarters of state television and at the presidential palace.
"We expected the army's decision; we always knew that it was behind Mubarak. But we know it's not going to harm us," Safi Massoud said as she joined thousands of people packed into the square.
"We won't leave until we choose a transition president. We don't want Mubarak, we don't want Suleiman," she said.
The statement from the military cleared up uncertainty over where its loyalties lie after seemingly conflicting statements issued by Mubarak's Cabinet and his generals a day before. The council announced Thursday that it had stepped in to secure the country, and a senior commander told crowds in Cairo that "all their demands" would be met, swelling hopes that Mubarak would go.
Maha Azzam, a fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said it appeared that the military and Cabinet "weren't acting with one voice."
"There were mixed signals, and the United States got those mixed signals as well," Azzam told NPR. "We were all led to believe that there would be some radical change and that Mubarak would step down."
Hundreds of thousands of people across Egypt had watched Mubarak's speech in disbelief and anger as he refused to step down and made the symbolic gesture of handing over some authority to Suleiman. His defiant stance only emboldened the protesters, energizing their call for a "march of millions" Friday.
Protesters Mobilize In Cairo
Tarek Fawzy/AP
Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city, on Friday.
About 2,500 demonstrators assembled outside the gate of Mubarak's Oruba Palace on Friday, and more than 10,000 tore apart military barricades in front of the State Television and Radio building. The palace was protected by four tanks and rolls of barbed wire, but soldiers were doing nothing to stop people from joining the rally and chanting anti-Mubarak slogans.
Outside the palace, the words "You will be tried" were written in chalk.
"They are really trying to push out into other parts of the city … to up the ante," NPR correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro said, reporting from Tahrir Square.
Others massed outside the Cabinet, parliament and the state TV headquarters several blocks away from Tahrir Square, the center of the mass rallies that began Jan. 25.
Hundreds of demonstrators formed a human barricade around the building that houses state TV and radio, checking IDs and turning away those who work there. Tanks and barbed wire surrounded the building overlooking the Nile, but troops did not keep protesters away.
Soldiers on the streets took no action to stop the demonstrators, indicating they were trying to avoid another outbreak of violence.
In Egypt's second-largest city, Alexandria, NPR's Corey Flintoff said "tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands" were peacefully marching along a main boulevard that snakes along the Mediterranean seaside. Many waved Egyptian flags or carried banners and hand-lettered signs calling for Mubarak to leave.
"We understand, too, that a great many people have gone to Cairo to join the protests in Tahrir Square," Flintoff said.
Anxiety Mounts Across The Middle East
As Egypt braced for Friday's show of rage over Mubarak's speech, the Middle East's unease was mirrored in editorials in Arab newspapers. Egypt's revolution hangs in the balance, was the theme in a Lebanese paper, Egypt's stability will very likely be tested again, from an editorial in a Dubai newspaper.
The uprising in Egypt has already had a profound effect across the region, even seeming to inspire unusual public protest in Saudi Arabia. Despite Mubarak's defiant stance, his announcement did signal the end of one-man rule in Egypt. In a region of autocrats, that is a powerful symbol.
In Thursday night's speech, Mubarak called protesters' demands legitimate and promised that September presidential elections, in which he says he will not run, will be "free and fair," with supervision to ensure transparency.
Mubarak said that on the recommendation of a panel of advisers, he had requested the amendment of five articles of the constitution to loosen the rules on who can run for president, to restore judicial supervision of elections and to impose term limits on the presidency.
He also annulled a constitutional article that gives the president the right to order a military trial for civilians accused of terrorism. Mubarak said this step would "clear the way" for eventually scrapping the emergency law but with a major caveat: "once security and stability are restored."
The emergency law gives police virtually unlimited powers of arrest.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best organized opposition group, called the speech a "farce."
"This is an illegitimate president handing power to an illegitimate vice president," said Mohammed Abbas, who represents the Brotherhood's youth wing. "We reject this speech, and we call on Mubarak to step down and hand his powers to the army."
ElBaradei, who has emerged as a leader of the opposition,
sent a chilling tweet Thursday night, writing, "Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now."
Another opposition figure, Google executive Wael Ghonim, called for caution. "The situation is complicated. I don't want the blood of the martyrs to be wasted and at the same time I don't want to see more bloodshed," he said in comments posted on Facebook.
President Obama appeared dismayed by Mubarak's announcement. He said in a statement that it was not clear that an "immediate, meaningful" transition to democracy was taking place and warned that too many Egyptians are not convinced that the government is serious about making genuine change.
Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, told NPR that the impasse in Egypt leaves the U.S. in "the worst of all possible worlds — with grand expectations and supporting very important values, but without the capacity and leverage to implement a preferred American outcome or even an outcome in Egypt that we can control."
NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson and Eric Westervelt in Cairo; Corey Flintoff in Alexandria; and Deborah Amos in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this story, which contains material from The Associated Press.
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