Back when she was a cub reporter, Bothaina Kamel worked on a radio show called The Egypt We Don't Know.

"I travelled all over the country collecting various songs, community traditions, local ideas about the Nile or the desert," says the 49-year-old. "On reflection, I think it was the most important programme I've ever been involved in."

Kamel's latest project – a bid to become president of the Arab world's most populous country – does not have a formal title yet, but if it did, The Egypt We Don't Know might be appropriate.

The celebrity broadcaster turned political warrior may be the first woman in modern Egyptian history to run for the country's leadership, but it is Egypt's other marginalised groups – from Coptic Christians to Nubians and Bedouins, those who struggle to find a voice in the bellicose arena of national politics – who Kamel believes will benefit most from her run for office. [See footnote]

"By putting myself forward I am making this democratic right – the right of a woman to be president – a concrete reality, and that alters expectations," she says of her candidacy.

"No one expected a revolution would topple Mubarak, but it happened. We can win, but even if we don't we are winning every day just by being out here, changing people's perspectives."

It has been a week of changing perspectives in Egypt. The sight of Hosni Mubarak, the man Kamel hopes to replace being wheeled into a metal cage in a prison uniform, a man who at the beginning of this year counted among the most omnipotent and entrenched dictators in the world, has the potential to transform the patriarchal relationship between ruler and ruled that has long dominated much of the region.

"The moment Mubarak received his legal summons, officially accusing him of said crimes, the most important nail in the coffin of Middle Eastern cult-of-personality and leader-worship was finally hammered," wrote Egyptian blogger Bassem Sabry in a widely circulated post calling time on the Middle East's oppressive autocrats.

"All those men knew that the end of life as they were used to it has finally come, forever. Governments are for the people, not the other way around; the people own their countries, not the regimes."

That sentiment resonates strongly with Kamel, a former presenter of an early-hours radio show called Night-time Confessions who went on to work for a Saudi-owned satellite network before being unceremoniously dumped earlier this year.

Since she announced back in April her intention to compete in Egypt's first ever democratic presidential elections, her efforts to recalibrate the balance between state and society have come under sustained attack from many directions, not least the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) whom Kamel accuses of being an enemy of the revolution.

"At Abbasiya [an anti-SCAF demonstration in Cairo last month which came under attack by armed civilians] they almost killed me – people told me afterwards that some of the baltagiyya [paid thugs] were asking for me by name," she claims.

"The army stood by and watched it happen, and then later that night [Egypt's de facto interim leader] Field Marshal Tantawi appeared on national television thanking the 'brave people' of Abbasiya who stopped the outlaws. We are not outlaws, we are revolutionaries! They are the outlaws and thugs, they are Mubarak's regime, and they are as low and dirty as ever."

That kind of language is bold, even among reformist activists who have turned against the military in recent weeks and opened up a volatile legitimacy gap at the heart of Egypt's post-Mubarak transition. But Kamel's bombastic tone – "victor or martyr" is how she views herself when stepping out each day on to the streets – dovetails with her personal engagement with potential voters and an attention to specifics, from suspected abuses by intelligence agents in the north Cairo neighbourhood of Shubra to obscure links between particular security generals and high-flying businessmen. She may have barely 1,000 supporters on her Facebook site (presidential rival Mohamed ElBaradei boasts a quarter of a million), but there is something about Kamel that seems to spook Egypt's powers-that-be – and it involves a lot more than her gender.

"Unlike every single time an unknown activist or some adjunct professor decides to make a 'symbolic run' in some Arab country, Kamel's candidacy carries more weight than many observe – even though she has no realistic chance of winning," says Sabry.

He believes that her high-profile public persona as a TV star coupled with impeccable opposition credentials have put her in a unique position – Kamel was involved in the Kefaya (Enough) movement for political reform from its early days in 2005 and is the first presidential hopeful to break the taboo on criticising Egypt's armed forces. "At a time when political and social values are being rewritten … the shockwaves of a legitimate female candidacy could be massive," he says.

Fundamentally, Kamel views herself as a challenge to the culture of secrecy that permeates the top brass of the military, an institution which was closely invested in the regime of its former commander-in-chief Mubarak, and whose material interests could be threatened by any radical reform. The sensitivity of this issue was highlighted at the dramatic trial opening of Mubarak and his one-time interior minister Habib el-Adly, when state TV cameras inadvertently captured army officers seemingly bowing and scraping to the defendants as they left the courtroom. "I'm transparent," says Kamel, "and although I'm now a politician I still think that value is more important than anything else."

Like most of her rivals for Mubarak's job, Kamel has yet to outline a concrete policy framework, preferring to deal in either grand sweeping rhetoric or micro-detail, with very little in between. Her strength, she contends, lies in personal connections; her biggest criticism of Mubarak personally is his "arrogance and disrespect for the Egyptians all around him", and even ElBaradei is dismissed by Kamel as someone who deals with ordinary people avec des gants (with gloves on).

The road ahead will not be easy; while her status as the first female presidential candidate earned news coverage abroad, her campaign remains almost invisible at home when set alongside those of frontrunners such as former Arab League chief Amr Moussa or Islamic scholar Mohammad Salim al-Awa.

Officials have thrown every smear they can in her direction, from claims that she was buying up land in the desert oasis of Fayyoum to carry out illegal excavations for valuable antiquities (Kamel says she was actually in Fayyoum for an anti-poverty initiative) to suggestions that she hands out "fistfuls of dollars" to participants at reformist demonstrations.

"I don't expect anything," she says when asked to rate her chances of success in the presidential poll, which is likely to take place next year. "If you have no expectations, then you will find the good in whatever transpires."

She tells a story about a recent trip to the city of Suez, the site of violent crashes between civilians and police over the past few months. "I just came and listened and tried to help, and by the end of it people were chanting, 'Long live the woman!' It doesn't matter to Egyptians whether someone is a woman or a man, what's important is whether it's someone who can understand and help them. The revolution has made Egyptians feel free, and that's why I'm running for president."

• This footnote was added on 8 August 2011. In the 2005 presidential election staged by the Mubarak regime one woman – novelist Nawal El-Saadawi - announced plans to run, but then withdrew from the ballot.