CAIRO – The Internet activists who triggered Egypt’s popular uprising said Monday they had discussed reforms with the country’s new military rulers, a day after the generals dissolved Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
As the elderly generals and the youthful online campaigners sought to map out the country’s future, a wave strikes and protests swept several public and private sector industries as workers pressed demands for pay rises. In the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza, hundreds of tour guides gathered to urge tourists to return to the country, holding up banners in English, French, Russian and German that: “Egypt loves you.”
The cyber campaigners said the junta, which suspended the constitution on Sunday, vowed to rewrite it within 10 days and put it to a referendum within two months, in line with the protesters’ demands for democratic change. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has set a six-month timetable for holding national elections but said the cabinet Mubarak hastily appointed on January 31 — headed by a former airforce commander — would stay on.
“We met the army … to understand their point of view and lay out our views,” said 30-year-old Google executive Wael Ghonim and blogger Amr Salama, in a note on a pro-democracy website that helped launch the revolt. Ghonim became an unlikely hero of the uprising he helped organise after he tearfully described his 12 days in detention in a televised interview. He has since embarked on a high-profile media blitz despite denying he has political ambitions.
