Most activists have given the Supreme Military Council that is running the country high marks for the moves it has made since President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down last Friday. But the activists say they worry that Mubarak loyalists who remain in senior jobs could hijack the transition to democracy.
“The structure of the old regime is still in place,” said Ahmed Saleh, an activist and human rights lawyer who said he would attend the demonstration. “There are governors, ministers, chiefs of media institutions, the pillars of the old regime are still in place.”
Some senior members of Mubarak’s regime are under criminal investigation. Former interior minister Habib el-Adly and two other ousted ministers were arrested Thursday, along with steel magnate and Mubarak supporter Ahmed Ezz, the Associated Press reported. They face a range of allegations, including money laundering, abuse of authority and squandering state wealth.
But many other veteran officials remain in their jobs. Many activists from the leaderless protest movement that brought down Mubarak say they would prefer that technocrats unaffiliated with the former president’s National Democratic Party be appointed as caretaker ministers.
“Those people who were part of the old regime, nobody knows what they are doing now,” said activist Shahinaz Abdel Salam, 32, who plans to attend the Friday protest. “They are very dangerous.”
The military chiefs have suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament and said they will oversee the country until free elections are held in about six months. Military officials have said that they are trying to avoid an overhaul that would cause further disruption in the country, whose economy has taken a big hit because of the weeks of unrest.
Although the military has been lauded for showing restraint during the 18-day uprising, the institution faced fresh scrutiny Thursday as Amnesty International released the testimony of two Egyptians who said they were tortured by soldiers during the unrest. The detainees told the human rights organization that they were whipped, beaten, given electric shocks and threatened with rape.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Thursday that the United States would allocate $150 million to help Egypt’s beleaguered economy and its transition to democracy.