Hosni Mubarak's grip on power was slipping on Thursday and momentum appeared to be shifting rapidly in favour of pro-democracy activists. Undeterred by a violent police response, the deaths of at least seven people and over 1,000 arrests after three days of clashes in Cairo and other cities, organisers said they planned to make today's marches the biggest yet. Yesterday police shot dead a protester in north Sinai.
They were given a further boost after Mohamed ElBaradei, one of Mr Mubarak's fiercest critics, returned to Egypt from Vienna to join the protests, providing opponents of the regime with a potential figurehead to rally around. There are also reports of arrests of opposition figures overnight. The reported crackdown on the largest opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, came after it said it would back the Friday protests.
Desperately trying to avoid a repeat of Tunisia's Jasmine Revolt, which saw President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali ousted from power earlier this month, Mr Mubarak's ruling party convened in emergency session. The interior ministry declared on Thursday night it would take “decisive measures” against anyone protesting on Friday. In a further blow to his attempts to retain the office he has held for nearly 30 years, sources in
Egypt said Mr Mubarak, who is 82, was told by police commanders that any demonstration attracting more than 70,000 protesters could not be contained.
A page announcing Friday's protest on Facebook, one of the social networking websites that has played a leading role in mobilising opposition supporters, drew over 56,000 supporters in 24 hours. However early on Friday morning, many internet connections went down across Cairo, leading some to accuse the government of cutting them to prevent social networking sites being used to coordinate protests. While many of those are likely to stay at home, analysts say the regime's failure to break the protests will only embolden more Egyptians to join them. Yesterday, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood – Egypt's largest opposition group – also threw its support behind the protests, which have been mainly secular so far.
Its supporters could give the protests a major numerical boost. "It's over, I think, for the Mubarak regime," said Maha Azzam, an Egyptian-born associate fellow at the think-tank, Chatham House. "It may take a couple of months or longer, but I think there will now be a consistent challenge to him." If the police are unable to quell the demonstrations, Mr Mubarak will be left with no choice but to turn to the army. Although Egypt's generals have been unquestioning in their loyalty to the president, they may baulk at the prospect of ordering their troops to open fire at unarmed protesters and turn against him. It was the loss of the army's support in Tunisia that prompted Mr Ben Ali to flee.
