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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 October 2000 Issue No. 503 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 October 2000 Issue No. 503
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Elections Palestine International Economy Opinion Culture Books Interview Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Hamdin Sabahi:
Seventies' credentials
Hamdin Sabahi, a former member of the Nasserist Party's political bureau, will run for election in his native constituency of El-Borollos in the Nile Delta governorate of Kafr El-Sheikh.
Hamdin Sabahi
Sabahi, whose membership of the Nasserist Party was frozen four years ago, will contest the elections as an independent. Sabahi focuses in his electoral platform on saving Lake El-Borollos from pollution. He also calls for putting an end to the process of filling the lake with sand, to gain additional land, because this destroys aquatic life and increases unemployment among fishermen.
Sabahi took part in the last elections of 1995 and won a large number of votes, but failed in a run-off round.
He believes that the coming elections will be marked by integrity and will reflect the true will of voters. He has great confidence in the ability of the Egyptian judiciary to supervise the poll. He also hopes that security forces will not take sides and will not deal with candidates according to their political affiliations.
Sabahi became active in politics since the student movement of the early 1970s. Before obtaining a degree in mass communication, he was a member of a group which established the Nasserist Thought Club at Cairo University in 1974. He was head of the Cairo University Student Union in 1975-76 and deputy chairman of the General Federation of Students in 1975-77.
Following the food price riots of January 1977, Sabahi opposed President Anwar El-Sadat at a televised meeting between the president and the General Federation of Students. As a result, he was banned from working in the national press.
He was the youngest of a large number of political and intellectual figures, from various ideologies, whom El-Sadat sent to jail in September 1981.
The last time he was arrested was in 1991, when he addressed a Cairo University student demonstration protesting American-led strikes against Iraq, following its occupation of Kuwait. .
Sabahi is an active member of the Press Syndicate's council.
