More than 1000 people gathered at the Cairo International Airport today to welcome Mohamed Elbaradei, ex-director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who has become in the eyes of many a potential candidate for Egypt’s next presidential election.
Lined up in front of Terminal 3 since mid-day, youngsters from different political groups, as well as independents, came with animated pictures of ElBaradei and carried signs that read, “Welcome to you for the sake of change. With you and through you, for the sake of Egypt.”
It took about 100 young men and women to mobilize today’s gathering for the last month. Their immediate aim was to organize a civil get-together to welcome Elbaradei’s arrival from Austria, after 25 years of living outside of Egypt and as his term at the IAEA ends. But their longer term aim is to push for a constitutional change that can make the presidential election a more pluralistic and competitive process.
“When we were sure he was coming about a month ago, we started giving workshops to train people on how to organize themselves for the day,” says Israa Abdel Fattah, one of the organizers of the Popular Independent Campaign to support ElBaradei’s nomination. Abdel Fattah was carrying a sign with ElBaradei’s name around her neck and going around the terminal checking her colleagues were well organized. She was briefly arrested for trying to mobilize on the social networking website Facebook a civil disobedience day in Egypt in protest of rising prices, back in 6 April 2008.
“This is just a beginning. People need to join forces, not for the sake of electing one person per se, but for the sake of changing a whole corrupt electoral system, for the sake of making a constitutional change happen, for the sake of people’s right to vote,” says Abdel Fattah, enthusiastically. She says that this campaign is an opener for ElBaradei and all other independents whose candidacy is not currently supported by the constitution.
