Country’s vice President Omar Suleiman said in a brief televised statement that taking into consideration the difficult circumstances the country is going through, President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the post of president of the republic and has tasked the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the state’s affairs. The announcement, delivered during evening prayers in Cairo. The announcement made people go frenzy of celebration hugging each other and shouting ‘Egypt is free now’.
Suleiman’s announcement came after hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took the streets for the 18th consecutive day, marching on
presidential palaces, state television buildings and other government installations.
Earlier in a statement read out on state television at midday on Friday, the military announced that it would lift a 30-year-old emergency law but only “as soon as the current circumstances end”.
The military said it would also guarantee changes to the constitution as well as a free and fair election, and it called for normal business activity to resume.
Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei told that this is the greatest day of his life. He added that the country has been liberated after decades of repression adding that he expects a beautiful transition of power.
Al Jazeera TV showed the crowd in Tahrir shouting “We have brought down the regime”, while many were seen crying, cheering and hugging each other.
Ayman Nour, opposition figure and a former president told Al Jazeera that he would consider running for the presidency if there was consensus on his candidacy. He called Friday “the greatest day in Egyptian history”.
“This nation has been born again. These people have been born again, and this is a new Egypt.”
According to the TV channel the sense of euphoria at Tharir square is simply beyond description. Mubarak’s Heliopolis presidential palace, where at least ten thousand pro-democracy activists had gathered, said.
“I have waited, I have worked all my adult life to see the power of the people come to the fore and show itself. I am speechless.” Dina Magdi, a pro-democracy campaigner in Tahrir Square told Al Jazeera.
Earlier state media reported that Mr. Mubarak and his family left the Egyptian capital Cairo for his resort home in Sharm el-Sheik in the face of biggest ever demonstrations across the country.