Muslim Brotherhood demands junta cede rule

  The Muslim Brotherhood about-faced and demanded Egypt's military give up government control immediately, as Egyptians planned massive anti-junta marches Friday. The demand and marches came ahead of Saturday's anniversary of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's ouster after a revolution that began 18 days earlier and led to the military's post-Mubarak rule. The anniversary was to be marked by a planned general strike to demand an immediate government transfer to civilian rule. The Brotherhood, an Islamist religious, political and social movement legalized after Mubarak's fall, said in a TV interview with one of its senior leaders that the military must replace the current prime minister and Cabinet with a new coalition government formed by the new Parliament. The Brotherhood controls nearly 50 percent of the Parliament's seats and is widely considered Egypt's largest, best-organized political force. The call for the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to hand over power to civilians is street protesters' key demand but a move the Brotherhood previously rejected. "We must start the formation of a coalition government immediately, to deal in particular with the economic situation and the state of lawlessness in this homeland," Khairat al-Shater, deputy to the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide and one of its most influential figures, told the pan-Arab TV network al-Jazeera. Shater cited the government's repeated use of deadly force against protesters demanding an immediate power turnover to civilians as a negligent failing of the military's policing and security. "Dealing with the demonstrators violently is a mistake, a sign of weakness and mismanagement by the Ministry of Interior," he said. Shater promised the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, would "not monopolize the government." But secular liberal party leaders who called for months for an immediate power turnover to civilians said in response they would not form a coalition with the Islamists, preferring to remain an opposition bloc. "There is no difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military council -- they have a deal to work together," lawmaker Emad Gad, a leader of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, which has 25 parliamentary seats, told The New York Times. "The liberals would prefer to be in opposition to monitor and leave it to the Brotherhood to implement their control," he said. The military council has had to deal with intensifying domestic and foreign crises, including a deadly soccer riot, days of violent protests, a standoff with Washington that imperils billions in aid and a teetering economy. Forty Egyptian revolutionary parties and movements planned to march on Egypt's defense ministry Friday to demand the military immediately hand over power to a civilians, organizers said. The marches were to set out for the ministry from mosques and other locations around 1 p.m. (6 a.m. EST) after Friday jumu'ah prayers.