By MARK LANDLER
Published: February 6, 2011
MUNICH — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned on Sunday that removing President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt too hastily could threaten the country’s transition to democracy.
Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Munich. She made her comments on the way home from a conference.
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Her remarks were the Obama administration’s most explicit sign yet of its growing emphasis on averting instability in Egypt, even at the expense of the key demand from the Egyptian protest movement: Mr. Mubarak’s immediate removal.
Citing the Egyptian Constitution, Mrs. Clinton said that if Mr. Mubarak stepped down now, Egypt would have to hold elections for a new president in 60 days — too little time for the government or the opposition to organize a credible vote.
Her comments, made to reporters on the way home from a conference in Munich, echo what administration officials have said privately and some of what the White House’s temporary diplomatic emissary to Cairo, Frank G. Wisner, said publicly on Sunday: Mr. Mubarak is likely to remain in the picture, at least a while longer.
Mrs. Clinton reiterated that Mr. Mubarak’s future was up to the Egyptian people and declined to discuss what role he should play between now and September, when Egypt is scheduled to hold an election in which he has said neither he nor his son Gamal will compete.
But Mr. Mubarak’s resignation now would set off a chain of events, Mrs. Clinton said. Under the Constitution — a document she conceded not having thought about before this week — the speaker of Parliament would step in as a caretaker president, followed by quick elections.
“Now the Egyptians are the ones who are having to grapple with the reality of what they must do,” she said, noting that opposition leaders, including Mohamed ElBaradei, had also talked about the need for time. “That’s not us saying it; that’s the Egyptians saying it,” Mrs. Clinton said.
She made no mention of the desired outcome frequently discussed by protest leaders: that Mr. Mubarak would step down, the Constitution would be suspended for a transition that could take up to a year, the current Parliament would be unseated and then new elections would be held.
For nearly two weeks, as the protests have raged in Cairo, the administration has struggled to square its ties to Mr. Mubarak, a stalwart ally for nearly three decades, with its desire not to be seen as abandoning the demonstrators, who are crying for the president’s immediate departure.
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