Cairo, October 20: Arab League chief Amr Mussa said he did not rule out standing for the Egyptian presidency in the next elections in 2011, in comments published on Tuesday.
Mussa, 73, a former Egyptian foreign minister, told the independent Shorouk daily in an interview that it was still too soon to decide.
But he said he appreciated the “the trust expressed by many citizens when they talk of my nomination for the presidency… and it is a message that has reached me.”
He added that he was “among the firmest believers in the need to awaken a project for an Egyptian renaissance.”
Veteran President Hosni Mubarak, now 81, has yet to announce whether he intends to stand for re-election in 2011 when he will have been in power for three decades.
His son Gamal, who holds a senior position in the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), is widely seen as a possible successor.
Mussa, who served as foreign minister in the 1990s, was re-elected for another five-year term as Arab League chief in 2006.
Egyptian law requires that presidential candidates nominated by their parties must have led or held senior rank within that party for at least a year, and that the party concerned must have been founded at least five years before the election.
Independent candidates must secure the backing of 250 elected politicians, including at least 65 members of the lower house, 25 members of the upper house and 10 members of municipal councils — all bodies dominated by the ruling NDP
—Agencies