Mubarak says will not seek next term

In his speech on Tuesday night, Mubarak said that he does not intend to run for another term after massive anti-government protests shook the country for the past eight days.

Mubarak said that he will work in the last months of his term to ensure a smooth transfer of power.

"My main responsibility is to ensure stability, and in the next few months I will work on the country's stability," he added.

The president announced that he would seek constitutional change, which controls the criteria of the candidacy of the next president.

"I am a military man who served this country during war and peace and I will die on the soil of Egypt," Mubarak said.

Egyptian dissident and former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei said Tuesday via Al Arabia channel that Mubarak's speech did not meet people's demand, and he urged the immediate resignation of Mubarak.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters flooded downtown Cairo since Tuesday morning for a "march of one million," while other groups of smaller scales were calling for resumption of social order under leadership of the embattled president.

Demonstrators shouting slogans "Oust Mubarak" gathered in Tahrir Square, the center of protests, as the opposition parties called for a general strike and a one-million-people march to the presidential palace after a week of unrest in the country, as the army stood still to protect the people.

But Xinhua reporters said protesters remained in the Tahrir Square, while the presidential palace area was tightly protected by the army and remained calm.

Mubarak reshuffled his government on Monday in an attempt to defuse the week-long protest against his regime, but protesters rejected the changes and said he must surrender power.

Despite opposition parties' called for an indefinite strike and a one-million-people march to the presidential palace, some Egyptian intellectuals distributed leaflets among protestors, urging people to stay away from "violence" and "chaos"; Kazinform cites China Daily.

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