Egypt's State Council rejected on Sunday two lawsuits that sought to stop the Journalists Syndicate midterm elections from being held on 5 March as scheduled. As per the court's decision, the election will be held next Friday in the syndicate's headquarters in Downtown Cairo, Khaled Miri, the undersecretary of the syndicate and the head of the elections committee, said on Sunday. The Friday election will be held to elect a new syndicate head and six board members. Last week, the election supervising committee announced that six journalists met the requirements to run for the post of the head of the syndicate and 55 others for the syndicate's board. One of the lawsuits called for suspending the election over coronavirus concerns, saying that the syndicate's headquarters should not receive thousands of journalists, since this would endanger the lives of the members of the syndicate's general assembly. The second lawsuit to postpone was filed by a journalist who accused the committee supervising the election of violating bylaws in rejecting his candidacy for a syndicate post. The current head of the syndicate, Diaa Rashwan, was present during the court session, asking the court to reject the lawsuits and allow the election to be held on time. In remarks to the state's news agency — MENA — on Sunday, Rashwan said he would call on relevant authorities to carry out a sterilisation campaign at the headquarters of the syndicate throughout election day. He noted that he would also call on the health ministry to contribute to ensuring all preventive measures against the coronavirus are applied at the headquarters and monitor the temperatures of all visitors on that day. Rashwan said he would also urge the interior ministry to include a part of Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat Street, where the syndicate is headquartered, in the election plan on that day, in order to ensure social distancing is maintained. Miri said earlier that the interior ministry rejected a proposal to hold the elections in tents outside the syndicate's headquarters.
