Egypt in turmoil:

Million-strong march to oust Mubarak

EGYPT: Egypt's anti-government protesters, scenting victory after President Hosni Mubarak agreed to discuss political reforms, rallied support for what they hope can be a million-strong march for democracy on Tuesday.

Mubarak's newly appointed vice-president began talks with opposition figures and the army declared the protesters demands "legitimate" and said it would hold its fire.

But protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, keeping vigil through the night in defiance of a curfew, vowed to continue their campaign until the 82-year-old Mubarak quit.

"The only thing we will accept from him is that he gets on a plane and leaves," said 45-year-old lawyer Ahmed Helmi.

They aimed to rally one million people to step up their protests and with the army pledging to hold its fire, the scales appeared to be tipping against Mubarak's 30-year-rule.."Mubarak has become a liability for the institution of the army," Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics said. "And so it is becoming more difficult by the day for Mubarak to remain in office."

The United States and other Western powers have demanded he submit to free elections. Even if he holds out against the calls for his resignation, it seems unlikely he could win a vote.

For the military establishment, which has run Egypt since its officers ousted King Farouk in 1952, the aim may be to provide enough reforms to preserve military influence.

For Washington and Mubarak's allies in Europe, as well as Israel, attention will focus on how far Islamist groups, notably the hitherto banned Muslim Brotherhood, can gain power in any new Egyptian political system.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, used to calm on his southern border since a 1979 peace treaty with Cairo, said Egypt could turn into the kind of militant theocracy installed in Iran that same year.

The Brotherhood, which says it wants a pluralist democracy, has taken a cautious approach to joining in protests led by the young and the urban professional classes.

But it said on Monday it was calling on people to continue protests until the whole establishment departed "including the president, his party, his ministers and his parliament".Cairo, Tuesday, Reuters