Post date: Feb 10, 2011 10:55:5 PM
Protesters on Cairo's Tahrir Square react with anger as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak declares he will not step down form his position.
CAIRO, EGYPT (FEBRUARY 10, 2011) REUTERS -
President Hosni Mubarak provoked rage on Egypt's streets on Thursday (February 10) when he said he would hand powers to his deputy but disappointed protesters who had been expecting him to step down altogether after two weeks of unrest.
"Leave! Leave!" chanted thousands who had gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square in anticipation that a televised speechwould be the moment their demands for an end to Mubarak's 30 years of authoritarian, one-man rule were met.
But the crowd was left frustrated as instead, the 82-year-old former general portrayed himself as a patriot overseeing an orderly transition until elections in September.
"The people demand you go. The people say you go, leave, you thief, crook. You've got cancer and kidney failure. We don't want you. Go. All the people don't want you. Leave, leave," said one protesters in the square after Mubarak spoke on nstate television.
"The youths of Egypt will not leave him alone, just leave," said another.
"Thirty years he has done nothing what will he do for us now, he is not to stay, leave," said a visablly angry man.
"We didn't expect this at all and I see that everybody now is asking him and by all means just to leave his leadership and leave us all for a new democracy a new era for Egypt," said a protester.
"We asked him more than once that he should leave this country in peace, but he is still insisting to keep in this country ruling it with totally unbelievable shit. He really has to leave," said another man.
After Mubarak's speech last week, many Egyptians beyond the urban elites in the vanguard of recent protests had said they were satisfied by a promise of change in due course and have said they were more interested now in an end to economic disruption.
But the anger on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, hours ahead of a planned "Day of Martyrs" protest on Friday (February 11) to commemorate the 300 or more killed by security forces since Jan. 25 appeared ominous in an environment where the army has been on the streets for two weeks and on Thursday said it was in charge.