CAIRO – For the first time, a woman is running for the leadership of the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful Islamist group. Sabah el-Saqari says she wants to increase female participation in politics and even defends a woman's right to run for president, a stance her organization rejects.

But liberals who fear Islamist rule will set back women's rights say her candidacy is just an attempt by the Brotherhood to improve its image.

A 22-year veteran of the Brotherhood, al-Saqari is running to become chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party, which the Brotherhood set up after the fall of autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak in February last year. The party has become the vehicle through which the Brotherhood – banned and oppressed for decades under Mubarak – has rode to power, triumphing over the activists and progressive forces that led the revolution.