ARMY CONTROL OF EGYPT

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27309, 27 March 1954, Page 7

ARMY CONTROL OF EGYPT

Council To Disband In July

(Rec. 11 p.m.) CAIRO, March 26. Crowds roamed Cairo last night demonstrating against the decision of the Revolutionary Council to disband in July.

The demonstrations were the result of an announcement earlier that the decision to hold elections on June 18 had been confirmed.

The Constituent Assembly will meet on July 23 and the Revolution Council will dissolve itself the next day, ending the Army revolution movement which swept Farouk from the throne.

The supreme guide of the outlawed Moslem Brotherhood, Dr. Hassan Hodeiby, and several hundred other arrested members of the organisation, were released last night. A brotherhood spokesman said later: “Our brotherhood is back in action.”

Confirmation of the plan to hold elections is regarded as a victory for General Naguib. He came out of a series of Cabinet meetings and a six-hour “crisis” virtually master of Egypt until the Assembly meets and takes over parliamentary rule from the military leaders. The general himself will submit his future to the Assembly, which, will elect a President.

Meetings yesterday debated whether the elections should go ahead as previously planned, or whether military rule with martial law and the banning of principal parties should continue until internal conditions were more settled. A return to democratic rule is understood to have been fiercely opposed by the Deputy-Premier (Lieutenant-Colonel Abdel Nasser) and other Army leaders, General Naguib’s view prevailed. Egyptian newspapers today openly supported General Naguib while the crisis talks continued.

Articles on behalf of the powerful Wafdist Party (which first abrogated the Suez Canal Treaty leading to the present deadlock), and the Moslem Brotherhood, called for Parliamentary Government, the ending of martial law and the release of political internees.

Britain is holding firm that she cannot resume the talks on the Canal bafee evacuation in the present conditions of terrorism against British troops. Reuter’s correspondent in Cairo says that it remains to be seen whether the defeat of the Army militants will have consequential effects on the terrorists in the Canal zone.