Cairo: Fatima Naoot, a liberal Egyptian writer, is making education and women empowerment her key platform issue during her campaign for parliamentary elections.
“As a writer, I am preoccupied with causes of education, culture enlightenment and empowerment of women,” Fatima said. “These causes lie at the heart of my electoral programme.”
The 52 year old is running as an independent in the upscale district of Heliopolis. She is encouraged by the 33 women who have won seats during the first round of elections held last month in 27 Egyptian governorates.
The second and final round begins on Sunday and runs for two days in the 13 other governorates, including Cairo.
“If I win, I will work to reform the defective education system in Egypt, which is based on memorisation rather than the exercising of the mind. This is an affliction in reactionary societies,” she told Gulf News in an interview.
The mother of two studied architecture at the Cairo-based Ain Shams University. After graduation, she launched a brief career as an architect before deciding to devote herself to literature.
She has published 19 books, including poetry collections, translations and literary criticism. She is also a regular columnist in several newspapers inside and outside Egypt.
“I dream of seeing the spread of culture and a war against ignorance. I also dream of empowering women to be true decision makers,” she said.
“I think women have a strong chance in these elections compared to the previous ones,” she said, referring to the 2011 polls that produced an Islamist-dominated parliament which saw only 11 women win seats.
Egyptians have witnessed two revolutions in the span of four years. The first in 2011 brought down the regime of Hosni Mubarak and the second brought down the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammad Mursi in 2013.
“They have learnt a lot in this time,” Fatima said. “Despite the Salafist Al Nour Party’s attempts to exploit religion and buy votes for the poor, Egyptians were able to shut them out at the polls,” she said.
Al Nour, the only Islamist force running in the current polls, won only 10 seats out of the 273 that were at stake in last month’s first stage.
Compare this to 2011 when it won a quarter of seats in parliament, only second to the now banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Last year, Fatima, a Muslim, was charged with defaming Islam in response to a lawsuit filed against her by an Islamist lawyer.
The suit was based on a controversial tweet in which Fatima criticised Islam’s annual ritual of sacrificing animals during the major Muslim festival of Eid Al Adha. She denied her comments were intended to insult Islam and said her comments were intentionally taken out of context in an attempt to defame her.
But the lawsuit has only emboldened her resolve. “Thankfully, my supporters are intelligent and open-minded and the attempt to defame me boosted my popularity,” she said.
