Youth, activists avoid Islamist protest

Demonstration exposes political rift in Egypt

CAIRO – Hundreds of Egyptian Islamists protested in Cairo on Friday against what they said was a bid to bring back deposed president Hosni Mubarak’s old guard after his last prime minister was allowed to stand in the presidential election.

But exposing divisions less than a month before an historic vote that marks the final step in a turbulent transition from army rule, youth movements and other activists who led the anti-mubarak revolt last year did not join the demonstration.

The April 6 movement said it would not take part in protests that pressed for demands of a single group or party and the turnout was a fraction of the previous week when tens on thousands took to the streets.

Many youths who spurred on protests against Mubarak, putting national pride before religion, have struggled to turn street activism into an organized political force and fret about the dominance of Islamists in Egypt’s new political arena.

Suspicions over the army’s inten- tions were fuelled in the past week when Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister who like every president for the past six decades has held a top military post, was first thrown out of the race and then reinstated hours before the final list was declared.

Thousands turned out in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria and hundreds in other cities for the Islamist-led protest.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s biggest Islamist group, which already dominates parliament, called for the demonstration to prevent “a delay in handing over power in June and to protest at the attempt to revive the corrupt former regime.”.