CAIRO – 14 November 2023: Last September, Prominent opposition politician and head of the leftist Egyptian Social Democratic Party Farid Zahran announced his plans to run for president in the 2024 presidential elections.
The party’s supreme authority approved Zahran’s candidacy in the presential elections by a majority of 75 percent.
Later, on October 8th, Zahran was the second after incumbent President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, to submit his candidacy documents to the National Election Authority (NEA) to run in the Election.
And as voting day approaches, here is all you need to know about presidential candidate Farid Zahran.
Zahran, 66, is a democratic socialist politician and one of the most prominent leaders of Egypt's 1970s student movement who fought for political reform.
He is also part of the opposition movements calling for democracy and social justice in Egypt and currently serves as Chairman of the opposition Egyptian Social Democratic Party.
Zahran said his electoral program constitutes an integrated civil and democratic alternative with political and economic reform at its core.
Through the program, Zahran said he seeks to guarantee the improvement of people’s living conditions in a short time.
His fill name is Muhamad Farid Saad Zahran:
• Born in 1957. Graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture at Cairo University. Married to a professor at Cairo University.
• He is an Egyptian politician with a long experience, and considered one of the innovators of thought, discourse, and politics
• Chairman of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party
• He played a prominent political role during the January 25 and June 30 revolutions and was a founding member of the National Salvation Front alliance, which was formed in 2012.
• One of the founders of the Social Democracy Movement in Egypt and has many political and social books.
• In the 1970s, he participated in the student movement.
• He called for an initiative to renew the national discourse to include the four spectrums representing the national forces.
• He founded and chaired the board of directors of a publishing, translation and information house, which published hundreds of books and won many international awards.
• One of the founders of Al-Badil newspaper, he is also editor-in-chief of many periodicals and magazines, and has many intellectual contributions.
During his political life, Zahran contributed and participated in establishing:
• The Egyptian Popular Committee to Support the Palestinian Intifada, 2001.
• The People’s Committee for Combating Terrorism 1992.
• Egyptian Movement for Change.
• The Egyptian Social Democratic Center.
• Egyptian Social Forum.
• Euro-Mediterranean Civil Forum.
• Democratic civil movement
Electoral program
During the conference, Novamber 9, Zahran explained that in case he won the elections, he would prioritize serval decisions to make in the beginning, including limiting the ownership of the state-owned bodies to only major strategic projects, such as: the Suez Canal Authority, iron and steel, the aluminum complex, and the electricity, water and sewage companies. Health services, the exit of state agencies from non-strategic economic sectors.’
He noted that this would give the chance to the private sector without competition.
He pointed out the necessity of rescheduling the debts of Egypt and negotiating with creditors in the debt restructuring initiative for African countries, proposing the principle of exchanging debts for investments, committing the government to a strategy of reducing public debt, and preventing borrowing outside of financing projects with direct economic returns.
He also added that he would be directing all state agencies and institutions towards a national industrial, agricultural, service, social and cultural project, and approving a comprehensive strategic plan for national projects with the aim of employing workers, self-sufficiency and export, and deepening and localizing the industry through an industrial strategy in which all institutions participate.
Zahran noted that he would be forming a new government headed by a ‘prominent economic and political figure’ in case he won the election.
He pointed out that his first decisions include activating the Supreme Council for Digital Transformation, digitizing government services, developing an urgent plan to complete the digitization of all services, and working to remove all obstacles to complete this goal, while approving the principle of transparency and availability of information, and calling for an Arab summit to approve just solutions to the issue of the
Palestinian people. Supporting the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state and building regional integration by activating all Arab, regional and international frameworks.
He stressed the establishment of a commission to combat all forms of discrimination, which would report to the House of Representatives: in accordance with the constitutional entitlement, and enjoy independence, transparency and effectiveness, and obligating all state agencies to assist the commission and establish a prosecution and a specialized court to quickly adjudicate discrimination cases.
Mohamed Salem, supervisor of the economic axis of the electoral program for candidate Faried Zahran, said that the vision of the economic axis of the campaign embraces social economics and economic competition.
Salem added in his speech at the press conference that they are adopting a national strategy to deepen industrialization, as well as making room for the private sector.
He pointed out that, in the economic axis of Farid Zahran’s electoral program, they adopted a strategy to combat inflation, reduce debt, and grow investments.
Moataz El-Shenawy, the official spokesman for the electoral campaign of presidential candidate Farid Zahran, said that politics in Egypt must be carried out through legitimate channels, stressing that they are an integral part of the ‘modern Egyptian state.’
He added in his speech at the conference that he belongs politically to the Justice Party, calling on the attendees to adopt changing, stressing that he believes in democracy and the peaceful transfer of power, so the ‘Justice Party’ announced its full support for the presidential candidate Farid Zahran.
He pointed out in his speech that the program is launched through three basic axes, which are: ‘political, social and economic.’
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