CAIRO: Nearly 50 people died in weekend clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt’s military, as media outlets on Sunday hailed rallies urging the army chief to run for the presidency.

Three years after Egyptians rose up to demand the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, thousands of demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Saturday chanted slogans backing another military man, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, as police clashed with Islamists and activists elsewhere.

The health ministry said 49 people were killed when security forces moved to disperse protests across the country by supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi and activists who spearheaded the 2011 uprising.

The police arrested 1,079 ‘rioters’, said the interior ministry.

Morsi was ousted by the military in July following mass protests calling on him to step down. Since then, his supporters have been staging near-daily protests calling for his reinstatement, despite a crackdown that has killed more than 1,000 people and imprisoned thousands.

Widening their crackdown, authorities have also targeted secular activists, detaining some figures of the 2011 uprising for organising or taking part in unauthorised protests, after a disputed law adopted in November banned all but police-sanctioned rallies.

And in a drastic escalation, they also blacklisted Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement as a terrorist group in December after a suicide bombing killed 15 people in a police headquarters north of Cairo.

Meanwhile, private and state-run media have hailed “the fight against terrorism” led by the security forces, often accusing the Brotherhood and its supporters of holding violent protests.

On Sunday, they welcomed demonstrations organised a day earlier in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square in support of the military-installed authorities, seeing in them “the people’s challenge to terrorism”.

Elections

The government announced on Sunday early presidential elections likely to anoint the general who overthrew Morsi.

Military-appointed interim president Adly Mansour declared the poll in a televised address, a day after 49 pro-democracy protesters were killed by security forces across the country and hundreds rallied in Cairo in support of military coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Gen Sisi was expected to announce his candidacy for the election, scheduled before mid-April, after a show of support including the rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

But the weekend clashes and bombings also highlighted the military regime’s precarious grip seven months after Mr Morsi’s overthrow.—AFP