The Egyptian former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei has issued a public call for change in Egypt.
ElBaradei, protected by plainclothes security officials, urged about 700 people in a village in northern Egypt on Friday to add their names to a petition calling for reform, reported Reuters.
"Once we gather as many names as possible we will put it forward and bring about real change," ElBaradei said.
The petition seeks constitutional change to make it easier for independents like ElBaradei to run for president after decades of autocratic rule under President Hosni Mubarak. It also aims to revoke the Emergency Law that allows detention without charge and bans anti-government political activity like ElBaradei's outdoor public speech and earlier visit to Mansoura, where up to 1,500 supporters greeted him.
"The state may be a centralized power, but the people are stronger," he told the crowd, part of which had come with him from the nearby provincial capital Mansoura in the Nile Delta.
Returning home after 12 years as head of the Vienna-based IAEA, ElBaradei said that he may run for next year's presidential election.
Mubarak, 81, who returned from Germany on March 27 after gallbladder surgery, has not said whether he plans to run for a sixth six-year term in the election. If he does not, many Egyptians believe he will try to hand power to his son Gamal. Both father and son deny such plans.
HSH/ZAP/DT
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