By MATT BRADLEY And DAVID LUHNOW
CAIRO—Egypt's military rulers, hoping to set the stage for transparent democratic elections in six months, have unveiled a raft of proposed constitutional changes that include adopting a U.S.-style term limits of two four-year presidential terms.
The changes, announced late Saturday, come amid growing tensions between the military and protesters who ousted former President Hosni Mubarak from power earlier this month. Hours before the proposed amendments were announced, protesters and army personnel clashed near Tahrir Square, the site of this month's successful revolt.
Egyptian university students shouted slogans in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday, demonstrating for schools to reopen.
n Sunday, some protest leaders welcomed the proposed constitutional amendments but said they fell short in some key areas.The proposed changes would overturn a Mubarak-era law that effectively allowed his ruling National Democratic Party to oversee elections, restoring full supervision of the vote to the country's independent judiciarThe changes also seek to loosen restrictions on the eligibility of presidential candidates, creating a more open field, and to forbid trials of civilians in military courts.
amendments will be put to a referendum in about two months, according to members of an eight-man legal panel appointed by the military to draft the new rules.
Some opposition and protest leaders said the committee's suggestions don't go far enough toward removing the instruments of autocracy that allowed Mr. Mubarak to cling to power for nearly 30 years.
"With all due respect, it's not enough," said Gamal Eid, the general director for the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a Cairo-based advocacy organization. "We're not happy with the changes they made, and we're not happy with the way they chose the committee members to start with."
Mr. Eid said the NDP would retain too much influence in organizing elections, opening the door to vote rigging. He said the opposition movement also wanted a constitutional guarantee of independent and foreign monitoring of the vote.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces convened the eight-member committee two weeks ago to amend 10 of the most undemocratic articles in Egypt's constitution, which was suspended by the military following Mr. Mubarak's ouster Feb. 11.
The group was led by a prominent Islamist and historian and included a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a once-outlawed Islamist group, as well as a Coptic Christian—appointments that were intended to signal tolerance and consensus, members said.
"There were no real disagreements, and everyone got along well," said Sobhi Saleh, a lawyer and former parliament member from the Muslim Brotherhood legislative bloc.
Members of the committee studied other constitutions, including the U.S. constitution, in drafting the changes. Indeed, the group could draw parallels to the U.S. Founding Fathers in one way: There were no women on the panel."We felt these were the first steps to hold clean elections and allow Egypt to move forward," said Hatem Bagato, the deputy head of Egypt's Constitutional Supreme Court, one of three court members on the panel. Mr. Bagato was emblematic of the committee's diversity: He is a Muslim who is known for his tolerant views and sends his daughters to private Catholic school.
Committee members defended the reform process, saying their proposals are meant as a temporary measure before parliamentary elections, tentatively scheduled to be held in about four months. The popularly elected parliament is then expected to select a constitutional congress of about 100 people to draft an entirely new document.
"Making a new constitution is not the role of eight people," said Atif Al Banna, a committee member. "This has to be with the participation of the political parties, political powers and civil-society organizations."
The committee's proposals come amid unsteady relations between Egypt's military and leaders of the revolt, some of whom are still organizing protests to meet their residual demands, such as prosecuting corrupt former regime officials, freeing hundreds of political prisoners and removing Mubarak-appointed ministers from Egypt's cabinet.
Some protesters who returned to Tahrir Square last Friday clashed with police and army personnel Saturday morning. Several demonstrators were briefly detained, including revolutionary youth leader Shadi El Ghazali.
In a nod toward reconciliation, the military apologized to the protesters on its Facebook page on Saturday morning for "unintentional clashes" between the military police and the "sons of the revolution."
Analysts and opposition leaders said the apology itself was a sea change in Egyptian politics.
"This was the first time the people in power in Egypt apologized for anything, but they did not take responsibility for what they did," said Ziad Al Alimi, one of the youth protest leaders.
Mr. Al Alimi said protesters are continuing to negotiate with the military while marshalling their numbers for further protests on Friday.
Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com
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