CAIRO — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak defied expectations and announced Thursday he would stay in office until September elections but pass some authority to Vice President Omar Suleiman, triggering a furious response by protesters chanting “down with Mubarak.”
Waves of the up to 100,000 enraged anti-Mubarak protesters, who had carpeted Cairo’s Tahrir Square all day, marched out and down the street. Their destination was unclear but CNN reported there were chants of “we’re going to the presidential palace.”
It was not immediately known if Mubarak delivered his national address from the palace, which was reported surrounded by a military cordon earlier in the day.
Al Jazeera reported the crowds were headed for the state television building, which was being protected by the army.
The future role of the widely respected military, which earlier had promised not to fire on protesters, also was not immediately clear. A senior Egyptian official told Fox News Channel a statement would be issued by the Higher Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces early Friday local time.
Some of the protesters, who had spent the day in a jubilant carnival atmosphere at the square in anticipation of a Mubarak resignation, called for an immediate general strike and angrily addressed the army with, “Egyptian army, the choice is now, the regime or the people!” AFP reported.
Some also took off their shoes and brandished them at the screen on which they had seen Mubarak’s speech, a grave insult in Arab societies, AFP said.
Mubarak, who had been rumored by multiple news sources to have decided to resign after 17 days of protests, instead said he would hold onto power and declared he would “never accept” anything “dictated by a foreign source, no matter who the source is.”
He said he had asked for six constitutional amendments and was transferring some unspecified powers to Suleiman, a longtime colleague he appointed to the vice presidency January 29.
Suleiman later went on television to tell protesters to go home or back to work and told them not to listen to satellite television.
In his speech, the 82-year-old Mubarak, in power for 30 years, continually talked about how much of his life he had devoted to Egypt and painted himself as a bulwark for stability.
As Mubarak finished his remarks, multiple questions immediately loomed, including what his decision would mean for Egypt as well as for the US and Israel, and what role, if any, the banned Muslim Brotherhood might now play in Egypt’s future.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama, who watched Mubarak’s speech as he flew home from Michigan aboard Air Force One, would meet with his national security advisers Thursday evening.
Mubarak, a former air force general, took power amid violence and chaos. As vice president, he was sitting next to President Anwar Sadat when Muslim extremists gunned down the president on October 6, 1981 but left Mubarak with only a minor hand injury.
Exactly one week later, Mubarak, the sole presidential candidate, was elected head of state with over 98 percent of the vote. He has stayed in office since, building strong ties with the US but growing increasingly autocratic at home and triggering festering resentment among Egyptians, especially when it seemed Mubarak was grooming his son, Gamal, to succeed him.
Following the eruption of protests January 25, Mubarak announced on Feb. 1 that he would step down at the country’s next general election in September. But that was not enough for the protesters, who staged non-stop rallies and even camped out in Tahrir Square, demanding he resign now.
Suleiman held talks last weekend with some opposition leaders but they dismissed his offered concessions as insufficient and have continued to insist that the only thing they would accept was Mubarak’s resignation.