Parliament elections overshadowed the two-week sit-in in Tahrir Square. However, the few thousand who remain insist they will not leave, reports Khaled Dawoud After bloody clashes on Tuesday night between a few thousand protesters in Tahrir Square and hundreds of street vendors who nearly occupied the area, the symbol of Egypt's 25 January Revolution appeared calm yesterday. While the "Tahrir revolutionaries", as they prefer to call themselves, insist they will continue their two- week sit-in, and hold a big protest on Friday, there was increasing public pressure to empty the square and restore normal life in that vital part of downtown Cairo. Around 11am yesterday, there were only small groups of people spread throughout the square discussing the political situation and what they should do next. The majority were mostly truant teenagers and students who stayed away from school. Clearly present were young football fans of Ahli and Zamalek, known as the Ultras, who were chanting obscene slogans against the Interior Ministry and police officers. "Are these naughty boys the ones to decide Egypt's future?" said one middle aged woman who was walking in Tahrir. People who came to the square to see the situation for themselves tried in vain to persuade the young men to empty the area and open it for traffic. "The Mubarak regime also tried to kick us out of the square, saying we were hurting the economy," one of the young rebels told an elderly man. "But we ended up removing Mubarak and allowing you to vote freely. So don't ask us now to leave the square. We are here to force the army to meet the demands of our revolution" he added. Besides those present in Tahrir, a few hundred protesters gathered in front of the prime minister's office in the nearby Qasr Al-Eini Street, and blocked the entrance to express their opposition to the decision taken by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to appoint Kamal El-Ganzouri as prime minister. El-Ganzouri, 78, served for 12 years as planning minister under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, and was later appointed as prime minister by Mubarak in the mid 1990s. Protesters were stunned by the appointment, saying El-Ganzouri clearly belonged to the former regime, even if Mubarak had removed him from his post as prime minister due to reported attempts by El-Ganzouri to expand his powers. They were also dismayed by the fact that SCAF broke its promise to appoint a relatively young premier, considering that the revolution was sparked by mainly young people. More than 30 people were killed in Tahrir on 19 and 20 November after anti-riot police and army soldiers attempted to break a sit-in at the square by relatives of several victims who were wounded during the start of the revolution that ended with the removal of Mubarak on 11 February. At least 12 others were killed in a number of Egyptian cities in similar protests. The failed attempt to break the sit-in on Saturday 19 November developed into what many observers saw as the "second wave" of the revolution as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians rushed to the square to express their anger at the violent break- up of the protest, and the policies of the SCAF over the past 10 months. The most violent clashes took place in Mohamed Mahmoud street that leads to the Interior Ministry's heavily fortified headquarters. A truce was finally reached between the protesters and the army a week ago, but the street where the American University in Cairo is located has been blocked since. Huge cement blocks, nearly three metres high, were placed in the middle of the street, together with barbed wire in order to prevent the protesters from reaching the Interior Ministry and clash with anti-riot police. All the shops along the street, including many famous American franchise restaurants, were closed. The shops' shutters and the walls of AUC were painted with slogans against SCAF and its commander, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. "The Supreme Council is the leader of counter-revolutionary forces" said one slogan. Another criticised "the massacre committed by the Field Marshal" referring to the heavy death toll that resulted from clashes between protesters and police and army forces on 19 and 20 November. After months of failing to set a firm date for presidential elections, SCAF finally announced last week that a new president will be elected no later than 30 June. In the wake of the violent events, many protesters in Tahrir demanded that the first round of parliament elections be postponed by two weeks. However, SCAF insisted on going ahead with the vote as scheduled and vowed to provide security at the polling stations. In an attempt to satisfy the protesters in Tahrir, SCAF also announced it would appoint a 50-member advisory council to work with the newly-appointed premier El-Ganzouri. Yet, the move was rejected by the Tahrir crowd which had originally demanded the appointment of a so-called "salvation government" headed by presidential candidate and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El-Baradei. The cabinet proposed by the revolutionaries, and ignored by SCAF, included other presidential hopefuls such as Islamist candidate Abdel-Moneim Abul- Fotouh and Nasserist candidate Hamdeen Sabahi. El-Baradei reportedly turned down the prime minister's job after SCAF refused to grant him an expanded mandate. As election day on Monday loomed, the number of protesters who flooded Tahrir Square last week started to decrease. While many protesters seemed to oppose the voting, saying the real struggle was against SCAF and pressing its members to hand over power to an elected president, others said they would take part in the vote. Meanwhile, more and more street vendors occupied the square turning it into a near bazaar for all sorts of traditional Egyptian food and drink. The booming business of selling gas masks by street vendors to protesters last week retreated as clashes with anti-riot police stopped. Some rebels claimed that a few street vendors were also involved in selling drugs and harassing women who came to the square. When the rebels attempted to remove the vendors out of the square, they responded with rocks, knives, Molotov cocktails and even shooting at protesters. The vendors also called in more support from outside, and clashes went on between the two sides for a few hours. The rebels seemed to have won the battle by early Wednesday, and they fortified the entrances to Tahrir Square with more barriers and men to check the identities of those coming in. Health Ministry officials said at least 108 people were injured in the clashes on Tuesday night between Tahrir rebels and the street vendors. One protester who stood guard at a makeshift camp site made up of tents in the middle of Tahrir told Al-Ahram Weekly that he would never leave the square. "None of our demands has been met," he said. "We will only leave when SCAF leaves and we get a democratically elected president," he added. The young man who said that he worked as a part-time private driver also stated his opposition to the ongoing elections, saying they were "a farce." He noted that the upcoming parliament would not have enough powers to challenge SCAF or even to appoint a cabinet. "So why should I go vote in the first place? The revolution will continue, and I will never leave this place even if I am shot dead like all the martyrs who were killed here last week."
