The coalition of youth movements providing field leadership to the pro-democracy protesters is to announce, tomorrow, the formation of a 25-person committee mandated to negotiate with the Egyptian state
February 4, 2011
Members of the coalition of youth movements, which triggered the 25 April popular uprising and have since provided field leadership to the occupation of Tahrir Sq have agreed on mandating a 25-person committee of public and political figures to negotiate on behalf of the pro-democracy protesters, lawyer Ziad El-Eleimy, a leading member of one of the youth movements and a close associate of Mohamed El-Baradei, revealed to Ahram Online.
According to El-Eleimy, the 25-person committee is to include an assemblage of Egyptian luminaries, among whom the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel laureate, El-Baradei, himself. Another Egyptian Nobel laureate on the committee is Ahmed Zewail, a professor of chemistry and physics at the famed California Institute of Technology (Caltec), who also sits on US President Barak Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Over the past few years, Zewail has been increasingly vocal in criticizing the Egyptian regime for its lack of democracy. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, who retains wide popularity among Egyptian and Arab publics is also expected to be a member of the committee.
Not surprisingly, these three public figures have been among the names suggested as possible candidates for the presidency, once President Mubarak steps down.
The full list of members is to be announced tomorrow Saturday, said El-Eleimy, but preferred not to disclose as yet how that announcement is to be made.
He did stress, however, that the committee is to include five representatives of the youth movements.
As to when, and under which terms, the committee would enter into negotiations, El-Eleimy indicated that this would depend either on President Mubarak stepping down, or the announcement of a credible commitment to his stepping down within a specified, and short, period of time.
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