Egypt leaders stand firm as major protest planned

Egypt's ruling party said tonight it was ready for a dialogue with protesters but offered no concessions on tackling poverty and bringing in political change.

On the eve of what is expected to be among the country's largest anti-government protest in years, Nobel peace prize winner and pro-democracy reformist Mohammed ElBaradei was returning to the country and declared he was ready to lead the protests.

He said he was seeking regime change through peaceful means.

Egypt's largest opposition group - the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood - also threw its support behind the demonstrations.

Three days of protests have seen seven people killed, hundreds hurt and nearly 1,000 detained.

Social networking sites were abuzz with talk that Friday's rallies could be some of the biggest so far calling for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak after 30-years in power.

Millions gather at mosques across Cairo for Friday prayers, providing organisers with a huge number of people already out on the streets to tap into.

Safwat El-Sherif, the secretary general of the National Democratic Party and a long-time confidant of Mubarak, was dismissive of the protesters at the first news conference by a senior ruling party figure since the protests began.

"We are confident of our ability to listen. The NDP is ready for a dialogue with the public, youth and legal parties," he said. "But democracy has its rules and process. The minority does not force its will on the majority."

The 82-year-old Mubarak has not been seen in public or heard from since the protests began on Tuesday with tens of thousands marching in Cairo and a string of other cities.

Mubarak has not said yet whether he will stand for another six-year term as president in elections this year.

He has never appointed a deputy and is thought to be grooming his son Gamal to succeed him despite popular opposition. According to leaked US memos, hereditary succession also does not meet with the approval of the powerful military.

Mubarak has seen to it that no viable alternative to him has been allowed to emerge. Constitutional amendments adopted in 2005 by the NDP-dominated parliament has made it virtually impossible for independents like ElBaradei to run for president.

Mubarak's administration suffered another serious blow today when the stock market crashed. The benchmark index fell more than 10 % by close, its biggest drop in more two years on the back of a 6 % fall a day earlier.

The protesters have already achieved a major feat by sustaining their demonstrations for three days in the face of a brutal police crackdown.

The government has banned all gatherings and police have fired rubber bullets, tear gas, and used water cannons to disperse crowds.

They have also fired live ammunition in the air at times to warn people and there have been many scenes of riot police in helmets and shields charging crowds and beating people with batons and plainclothes police beating demonstrators with long sticks.

Scores of protesters gathered in Cairo and other cities today.

In the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, east of Cairo, hundreds of protesters clashed with police who used tear gas and batons to disperse them.

Reporters saw scores of protesters outside the central Cairo offices of Egypt's lawyers' union, which has been one of the flashpoints of this week's unrest. About 100 people were also protesting outside police headquarters in the city of Suez east of Cairo, another hot spot.

There were two other small, peaceful protests by lawyers in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta town of Toukh, north of Cairo. In the northern Sinai area of Sheik Zuweid, clashes between several hundred bedouins and police left a 17-year-old man dead.

ElBaradei, who has emerged as a prime challenger to Mubarak's rule, told reporters at the Vienna airport on his way back to Egypt that he was seeking regime change and ready to lead the opposition.

"The regime has not been listening," ElBaradei said. "If people, in particular young people, if they want me to lead the transition, I will not let them down. My priority right now ... is to see a new regime and to see a new Egypt through peaceful transition."

A spokesman for ElBaradei, Abdul-Rahman Samir, said the former head of the UN nuclear watchdog was expected to join protests planned for after the Friday prayers.

ElBaradei urged authorities to exercise restraint with protesters expressing their "legitimate need" for an Egypt that is democratic and based on social justice.

ElBaradei returned to Egypt last year after living abroad for decades and has created a wave of support from reformists. But he so far insisted he would not run in this year's presidential election unless restrictions on who is eligible to contest the vote are lifted and far reaching political reforms are introduced.

His support base is primarily made up of youths and he is seen as untainted by corruption. But his detractors say he may be lacking a thorough understanding of life here because of the decades he has lived abroad, first as an Egyptian diplomat and later with the United Nations.

The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood also expressed support for the demonstrations, raising the prospect that members of Egypt's largest and best-organised opposition group could join Friday's demonstrations in mass. If they do, it could swell the numbers on the streets significantly. But the group has stopped short of an outright call for its backers to turn out.

The Muslim Brotherhood called on its website for protests to remain peaceful. It also called for new parliamentary elections under judicial supervision, the introduction of far-reaching reforms and the lifting of emergency laws in force since 1981.

The Brotherhood made a surprisingly strong showing in parliamentary elections in 2005, when it won 20 % of seats and served as the main opposition bloc in the legislature. In the latest parliament elections held in November, the Brotherhood failed to win even a single seat. It decried widespread fraud by the ruling party and boycotted the runoffs.

The vote gave the ruling party all but a small fraction of the chamber's 518 seats, an outcome that analysts say chipped away further at the regime's legitimacy and likely contributed to the discontent being vented on the streets this week.

"The movement of the Egyptian people that began January 25 and has been peaceful, mature and civilised must continue against corruption, oppression and injustice until its legitimate demands for reform are met," said the statement.

"We are not pushing this movement, but we are moving with it. We don't wish to lead it but we want to be part of it," said Mohammed Mursi, a senior Brotherhood leader.

The stock market crash, which brought year-to-date losses to almost 21 %, hit at the core of some of the regime's main accomplishments.

The president has built his legacy continuing and expanding the open market policies launched by his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, in the 1970s.

While Egyptian officials have boasted about healthy economic growth figures, critics have argued that ambitious economic reforms have done little more than make the rich even richer while poverty, unemployment and prices rise unabated.