CAIRO: A delegation of the April 6 Youth Movement met Wednesday with Prime Minister Essam Sharaf at the Cabinet headquarters on the movement’s third anniversary.
The youth-based movement, which had an instrumental role in calling for the Jan. 25 protests that eventually toppled president Hosni Mubarak, said it would turn into a political organization that worked in social and economic projects but would not take the form of a political party.
“Currently, there is no law that identifies political organizations that have the right to participate in politics but isn’t a political party, and we are working on introducing a legislation that legitimizes such entities," said Mohamed Adel, spokesperson of the April 6 Movement.
"We will focus on fieldwork among the public to create political awareness but won’t compete or have candidates in elections," he added.
Adel said that the movement is currently working on providing support to a number of national projects like that of prominent architect Mamdouh Hamza for public housing and another by Egyptian scientist Farouk Al-Baz.
The April 6 members were scheduled to celebrate their third anniversary later on in the day at the Journalists’ Syndicate, where they would announce the new shape of the movement.
In 2008, it came into being after founding members called for a general strike in support of labor strikes and to protest rising prices. While streets of Cairo were relatively empty for a weekday, protests swept through the industrial Delta city of Mahalla. Three people died following violent clashes with the police.
To mark its first anniversary after the ouster of Mubarak, the movement organized protests in 25 governorates demanding the discharge of governors and the cleansing of the state’s administrative body.
"They were supposed to be discharged after the referendum on the constitutional amendments as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces promised, but they weren’t," Adel said.
"These are the remnants of Mubarak’s regime and are involved in corruption cases and must be eliminated," he added.
The movement said it will participate in the planned million man march this Friday because there must be pressure on the current authorities to achieve all of the revolution’s demands.
