'Anti-corruption crusader' strives for Egypt's top post

Cairo: Mainly popular with labourers, lawyer and activist Khaled Ali is the youngest among more than 20 Egyptians who have registered for competing in the country's presidential elections due next month. Ali, 40, is known for a series of lawsuits he filed and won for advocating labour rights even before a popular revolt deposed long-standing president Hosni Mubarak in February last year.

In 2010, he won a landmark ruling from the court obliging the Egyptian government to set LE1,200 (around 200 dollars) as a minimum wage. Almost two months after Mubarak's ouster, Ali secured another court ruling for the re-nationalization of three major Egyptian companies sold off by the Mubarak government to investors in questionable deals.

With his avowed enthusiasm about fighting official corruption and promoting social justice in this country where around 40 per cent of the 80 population is believed to be living below the poverty line, Ali was awarded last year the Egyptian Corruption Prize offered by a non-governmental group.

Born in the Delta province of Dakhalia in February 1972, Ali chose to announce his presidential bid on February 27, 2012, one day after he turned 40-- the minimum age for eligible presidential hopefuls.

"I decided to join the race after I was encouraged by a large number of supporters in the labour and student movements," he said.

A major incident that prompted him to run for president was the killing of 74 Egyptians in football rioting in the coastal city of Port Said in early February. "To me, this incident was tougher than the revolution against Mubarak," he said. "What happened in Port Said was that young people went to support their team and returned inside coffins. This made me feel apprehensive about plans by the counter-revolutionary elements to take revenge on all revolutionary forces."

Ali was the director of the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights, a non-governmental group, until he announced his presidential bid. But he continues to be a lawyer for protesters accused of wrongdoing by the military who has been ruling the country since Mubarak's ouster.

His supporters call him "the candidate of the poor" in the presidential polls also contested by several Islamists and former officials from Mubarak's regime. Ali admits that the race is tough.

"I am a young man whose campaigning is based on donations from individuals, not major corporations. The junta is against me because I am against them. The businesspeople are also against me because they do not like my discourse. This means that I am fighting a tough battle." Ali has chosen the slogan "we will fulfill our dreams" as a slogan for his campaign.

His platform espouses the rejuvenation of the public sector and a bigger role for the state institutions in securing social, healthcare and education services to the people, mainly the poor.

"These issues should be viewed as human rights, not commodities," he said. "Unemployment has exasperated in Egypt since the privatization programnme started (in the early 1990s). Therefore, there should be a vigorous public sector to be a mainstay of the country's social and economic plans."

Cooperatives constitute another aspect of Ali's economic platform. "Cooperatives in different walks of life are promoted even in the major capitalist countries. It is a practical way of achieving social justice."

Ali, who runs as an independent, has a clear programme on how post-revolutionary Egypt's foreign policy should be. He believes that Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel should be revised. "This treaty diminishes Egypt's full sovereignty over Sinai….I will abide by international pacts that are only in the interest of the Egyptian people. He, moreover, pledges to stop Egyptian gas supplies to Israel, exports for which several officials from the Mubarak regime are being prosecuted.

To Ali, Egypt's relations with the US are "unbalanced". Earlier this year, Washington threatened to cut 1.5 billion dollars in annual aid to its key regional ally, after Egypt arrested 43 workers for non-governmental organizations, including 19 Americans, and put them on trial of meddling in the country's internal affairs.

"The US does not represent the whole world. For example, we have Africa which we have long neglected. Egypt stands to benefit from promoting economic links with Africa," argued Ali. "Egypt also benefits from enhancing ties with the emerging democracies in the southern hemisphere."