A blog post in which presidential candidate Salim El-Awa's daughter explains her reasons for supporting Mohamed ElBaradei reappears on the internet more than a year after it was written Fatma El-Awa, daughter of the renowned Islamic thinker Salim El-Awa who announced last Saturday that he is running for president, wrote in a letter to her father back in February 2010 her reasons for choosing to support Mohamed ElBaradei as president of Egypt. At the time, El-Awa published this letter on his official website. But now, the same letter is being re-circulated among different media outlets and social networks but with the intriguing heading: “Would Fatma change her position since her father has now decided to run in the elections?” The letter starts with Fatma's observation that the changes taking place in Egyptian society are due to chaos, the over-centralisation of authority, a businessmen dictatorship leaving the poor even poorer and the general deteriorating state of a people who lost their dignity. “Everything has a value in Egypt except for the Egyptian citizen,” wrote El-Alwa in her letter. The media agenda deliberately brain washes Egyptians and prevents them from developing cultural or critical faculties, El-Awa said. Egypt has lost both its African and an Islamic leadership, she lamented. Then the daughter of the presidential candidate starts her search for a way out of those problems. She considers herself to be among what she calls the middle generation'. This "middle generation was brought up seeing torture in the police station and was told not to participate in any political group until it finishes its studies.” The blogger expresses her yearning for justice, a social safety net, direct strategies to combat poverty, personal freedom, a civil society and a solution for the Palestinian issue. Here, she suggests that Mohamed el-Baradie is fit to rule Egypt as he has not corrupted by the current ruling system. El-Baradei is a successful Egyptian figure, a wonderful intellectual who i known for his support for international justice, El-Awa believes. “Egypt needs a leader who listens to the point of view of everyone, a candidate who is neither Islamist, nor leftist nor rightist nor liberal,” El-Awa wrote in her letter. Then Fatmah ends her letter to her father by saying that change in itself not whether Egypt would be an Islamic or a Secular State, is the most important thing. This blog post was obviously written long before the Egyptian revolution broke out which leaves many wondering where she stands now that her father has decided to run for president.
