KABUL - Condemned to die shortly after birth for being a girl, outspoken Afghan member of parliament Fawzia Koofi lived to become a champion of women's rights and is now eyeing the presidency in 2014, Reuters reported.
The 36-year-old expects harsh opposition, threats of violence and pressure against her family as her campaign gets underway to replace Hamid Karzai, who must step down that year after serving the constitutional limit of two consecutive terms.

"I am sure my campaign will be the noisiest. I will have lots of troubles against me," the politician from the country's remote northeastern Badakhshan province told Reuters in an interview this week.

Koofi is the first person to declare an intention to run in the election, which is becoming increasingly fraught with confusion and uncertainty in the run-up to the withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.

Her bid would appear a long shot. Most ordinary Afghans in the ultra-conservative, deeply Muslim country do not take the idea of a female leader too seriously but Koofi is undeterred.

The nineteenth of her polygamous father's 23 children, she astonished her family by becoming the first girl to get an education, which she achieved by begging her brothers to allow her to attend school.

Koofi wants Afghanistan to stop relying on foreign aid, which accounts for more than 80 percent of the budget, and become financially independent, with enforced rules to control its resources, in particular its mineral wealth which she likened to "billions of dollars underground". (Reuters)