One month after receiving the official candidacy documents from citizens interested in running for Egypt’s first post-Revolution presidential election, registration for presidential nomination closed on Sunday 8 April
One month after receiving the official candidacy documents from citizens interested in running for Egypt’s first post-Revolution presidential election, registration for presidential nomination closed on Sunday 8 April. The Supreme Presidential Election Commission (SPEC) announced it had received applications from 23 candidates, and will issue a final list of the approved candidates by 26 April.
Voting for the presidential poll will take place on 23 and 24 May. The new president will be named on 21 June following a runoff vote—in the event that no single candidate wins an initial outright majority—on 16 and 17 June.
To run for president
Egypt’s elections law stipulates that candidates are required to secure the support of 30 parliamentarians, collect official endorsements from 30,000 citizens or enjoy the support of a political party that holds at least one seat in the Parliament, in order to officially run for president.
Candidates must be born to Egyptian parents who have never held citizenship of another nation.
The candidates include former Arab League chief Amr Moussa; Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq; and Hamdeen Sabahi Omar Suleiman, former intelligence chief and a stalwart of the Mubarak regime and seen as close to the ruling military, registered less than half an hour before the registration deadline. Suleiman. 74, decided to run on presidency race to overwhelming public pressure had aroused his sense of soldierly duty.
Supported by the parliamentarians are candidate MPs Khalid Ali, Nagah Meligi Shata, Mahmoud Hossam al-Din Mahmoud Galal, Ahmed Mohamed Awad, and Ibrahim Ahmed al-Ghareeb.
Ayman Nur, nominated by al-Ghad (tomorrow) party, whose unprecedented challenge to Mubarak in 2005 earned him worldwide recognition, was pardoned last week of a conviction for fraud, allowing him to run for the top job. Abdullah al-Ashaal, former deputy of foreign minister, nominated by the Asala Salafi party and Murtada Mansour, a lawyer and former head of the Zamalek football club, nominated by the Egypt National Party.
Other prominent names on the candidates’ list include Abul-Ezz al-Hariri officially nominated by the Socialist Popular Coalition Party; Mohamed Mamdouh Helmi Qutb (Civilization party); Mohamed Abdel Fattah Eissa (Democratic Generation party); Hossam Khairallah (Democratic Peace party); and Hisham Bastawisi (National Progressive Unionist party).
Islamist candidates
Among the Islamist candidates are the Freedom and Justice Party’s Mohamed Morsi; Mohamed Salim al-Awwa, former secretary-general of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and currently head of the Egyptian Association for Culture and Dialogue, and physician Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, secretary-general of the Arab Medical Union and former member of the guidance bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), who is known as a moderate Islamist.
Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, 51, a lawyer and Salafi ultra-conservative known for his fervent anti-US rhetoric, is widely popular, yet was found to have a mother who held an American passport, potentially disqualifying him from the race. His supporters have threatened, however, that if he is disqualified, they will take to the streets.
WATANI International
15 April 2012