In an emergency meeting the board of the Egyptian Writers’ Union dissolves their current board ahead of mid-term elections originally planned for 25 March, 2011, which would only have replaced half of the board.

Instead, they authorise the president, vice president, general secretary and treasurer to run new elections to replace the entire board in accordance to the union’s bylaws. Also planned is a general assembly meeting on 29 April, 2011.

According to a statement they issued the Egyptian Writers’ Union has taken this unprecedented historical step on Monday with the intention to give Egyptian writers an opportunity in this critical moment of the country's history to reform their union’s whole board as deemed appropriate for the new era post-25 January.

The new era that promises democracy, freedom and social justice has, indeed, been the subject of much of Egypt’s literature.

The statement pointed out that the Egyptian Writers’ Union was the first syndicate in Egypt to declare their support for the 25January Revolution in an official statement issued on 26January where they adopted the revolution’s demands. 

Today, they assert, the conscious and courageous decision of the union’s council to reform itself in the wave of Egypt’s regeneration is one logical manner to support reform in general. Another way is to legitimate all that was achieved by the revolution.

Mohammed Salmawy, president of the Egyptian Writers’ Union and general secretary of the Union of Arab Writers, called for all the members to develop new ideas and framework for the future of the union, which would then become its constitution for the coming era.

The statement ended by encouraging Egypt’s authors to set an example for the rest of the organisations, so they, too rebuild from the bottom up as it looks to the future.