CAIRO, Dec 8: Feminist Egyptian author Nawal Saadawi said on Wednesday she plans to run in next year's presidential race, even though she does not expect to win.
"I am going to stand in the presidential election, not to win but to get the Egyptian people moving in favour of a reform of the constitution and to oppose corruption and American colonialism," she said.
Saadawi, aged 73, will be the first ever woman to run for the post and will probably be up against incumbent President Hosni Mubarak, who is expected to run again for his fifth term in office in the October 2005 vote.
Just to stand, a candidate for the presidency in Egypt must first win two thirds of the vote in the Senate, dominated by Mubarak's National Democratic Party. But the opposition has been calling for years for constitutional reform to allow the president to be directly elected from a list of candidates and for a reduction in the term of office and the extent of powers.
"I want to get moving 70 million Egyptian men and women who are currently just spectators without a voice and without power," Saadawi added. Saadawi's liberal ideas have often put her in direct conflict with the country's conservatives and Islamists, some of whom have in the past dragged her to court to demand that she be declared an apostate.
She has authored many books on women and gender issues, some of which have been translated into foreign languages. Saadawi said she wanted changes laws to be changed so they are "fair to all," saying they should not discriminate on the basis of "religion, ethnicity, social class or profession", and that Egyptians were "all equal in rights and duties at the family and national levels."
New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch in late November condemned Egypt's legal system as biased against women and called for a reform of the divorce laws.
The feminist said she wanted to see a separation between religion and state, restating the late president Gamal Nasser's maxim: "Religion for God and the State for all." -AFP
