PRESIDENT MUBARAK, who has ruled Egypt for a quarter of a century, has announced some of the most sweeping democratic reforms in the country’s history.

Speaking at his home town of Menoufiya in the Nile delta, north of Cairo, only days after President Bush called for democratic reform in Egypt, Mr Mubarak, 76, said that he would ask parliament to amend the constitution to allow direct, multi-candidate elections for the first time.

“I took the reins of this initiative in order to start a new era on the way to reform,” he told cheering supporters.

He said that he would be asking parliament to amend Article 76 of the constitution, to introduce direct elections with multiple parties.

Under the current system the President is not directly elected. Parliament selects a candidate, who is then submitted to a yes/no referendum. In the four elections since he became President in 1981, Mr Mubarak has always received at least 95 per cent “yes” votes.

The decision took Cairo by surprise.

Although there had been a growing movement against another term for Mr Mubarak — including a small street protest last week in the capital — the President had previously refused to consider any constitutional reform until after September’s presidential referendum.

The Egyptian press welcomed the move effusively, with the bestselling state-owned daily Al-Ahram carrying the headline “Egypt begins a new era on the path of reform”. Ibrahim Nafie, the editor, called it “a courageous decision”.

Other writers emphasised that Mr Mubarak’s announcement came out of a discussion with opposition parties and denied suggestions that foreign pressure may have been involved.

On February 21, while in Brussels, President Bush had called for reform in Egypt: “The great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East,” he said.

Most Egyptians reject US pressure for democratisation.

The country’s largest opposition group, the banned Muslim Brotherhood, has voiced its disapproval, saying that the proposed changes would limit the choice of candidates to existing opposition parties.

Muhammad Akef, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, said that the question of whether it would field its own candidate was “too premature”.

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