CAIRO, 17 June 2005 — The nephew of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat officially announced yesterday plans to run for president in September and accused incumbent Hosni Mubarak of wrecking his uncle’s popular legacy.
Talaat Sadat, 51, had planned to launch his presidential bid at the mausoleum erected on the site of his illustrious uncle’s 1981 murder, but access was forbidden by military police, an AFP correspondent reported.
“We apologize for any inconvenience due to maintenance work,” read signs in English and Arabic on the barriers sealing off the area on the outskirts of Cairo.
“It’s a very strange situation because we had received an authorization letter from the authorities,” said Sadat, who held his press conference on the nearest street corner after laying two wreaths on his uncle’s tomb.
A few dozen supporters waving posters and banners turned out for the official announcement of Sadat’s candidacy in the country’s first pluralist presidential elections in decades.
Talaat Sadat, from the small opposition Al-Ahrar (The Free) party, said he was not happy at the way the government was running the country.
“I am not satisfied with the country’s security policies nor with the way Egyptians are being treated,” he told the press.
Sadat, who will also run against a jailed Islamist leader convicted in his uncle’s murder, vowed that one of the first points in his program would be to lift the state of emergency slapped on the country since that time.
