Middle East News

West calls for orderly transition in Egypt

Feb 5, 2011, 17:39 GMT

Egyptian protesters gather on Tahrir Square, in Cairo, Egypt, on 05 February 2011. EPA/Hannibal Hanschke

   Munich - Western leaders attending the Munich security conference Saturday called for an orderly transition to democracy in Egypt - but refrained from asking President Hosny Mubarak to immediately step down.

   'There has to be some orderly transition process in place to avoid a total vacuum of power,' German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the event.

   US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke of a 'perfect storm' battering the Arab world and invited future Egyptian governments to be inclusive, respect minorities and renounce violence.

   Clinton called for free elections monitored by international observers and spoke of the risks that a badly-managed transition might pose.

   'Of course there are risks with the transition to democracy,' Clinton said. 'It can be chaotic, it can cause short-term instability. Even worse - and we have seen it before - the transition can backslide to just another authoritarian regime.'

   For this reason, change 'will only work if it is deliberate, inclusive, and transparent.'

   Merkel, for her part, drew from her own experience as a young politician fighting for democracy in once communist East Germany to caution Egyptian opposition groups against demanding immediate elections.

   'I believe a very quick election as a start for the democratization process is wrong,' she added.

   British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was also in Munich to take part in a debate on global security, said it was not Europe's role 'to point fingers and say which leader should go.'

   At the same time, 'this regime must opt for political reform' rather than repression, Cameron said.

   Merkel and Cameron, both from the centre-right, stressed the need to uphold human rights, regardless of what form of government may be in place in a particular country.

   'Simply exporting Western-style democracy on a one-on-one basis may perhaps not work all over the world,' Merkel said. At the same time, there is 'one red line' that cannot be crossed: the United Nations convention on human rights.

   UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened a discussion on transatlantic security at the Munich conference by referring to the protests in the Arab world, which he said were driven by 'human insecurity' and 'poverty' but also 'corruption' and a 'deficit of democracy.'

   The head of the UN said world powers should step up their efforts at 'preventive diplomacy' rather than wait for crises to unfold.

   Addressing the possibility of a new government in Egypt, where protesters were on the streets for a 12th day in a row, Clinton said that 'those who want to participate in the political system must commit to basic principles, such as renouncing violence as a tool of political coercion, respecting the rights of minorities ... in a spirit of tolerance and compromise.'

   She said that 'those who refuse to make those commitments do not deserve a seat at the table.'

   Egypt's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been defending itself against charges that it has fuelled violent protests in Egypt.

   Clinton then met her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and exchanged ratification documents for a new nuclear arms reduction agreement between the United States and Russia.

   The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, requires both sides to reduce their arsenal of warheads by roughly one-third of current levels - from 2,200 to 1,550.

   The previous treaty, which was sealed in 1991, expired in December 2009.

   A meeting of the so-called Middle East Quartet was taking place on the sidelines of the conference.

   Meanwhile, some 2,000 anti-NATO protesters, according to police estimates, took part in a peaceful demonstration in downtown Munich.