ElBaradei Urged Mubarak to Ease Grip on Politics for Nine Years

Mohamed ElBaradei privately called on President Hosni Mubarak to ease up on political controls for nine years before joining Cairo protests that prompted Egypt’s leader to announce he won’t seek another term in office.

ElBaradei’s diplomacy with Mubarak began in the months leading up to the 2003 Iraq war, when the Nobel-prize winner stepped out of his role as chief of the United Nations atomic agency to have “candid talks in Cairo about the importance of starting democratic reform in Egypt,” said Laban Coblentz, ElBaradei’s former speech writer in a Jan. 31 interview.