The Presidential Election Commission will soon announce the final list of candidates running for the 7 September elections. Gamal Essam El-Din reports By tomorrow, the final list of candidates running for Egypt's first multi-candidate presidential elections will be announced. The Presidential Elections Commission (PEC) has been busy vetting the candidates who submitted their applications. The list is primarily confined to candidates belonging to political parties. As expected, independents who showed interest in running were excluded because they failed to meet stringent conditions that include collecting 250 recommendations from MPs and members of local councils. One of the most prominent would-be independents to be rejected was Aboud El-Zommor, a militant Islamist who is now serving a life sentence for participating in the assassination of late president Anwar El-Sadat. Thirty applications were submitted in total. After rejecting 20 of them, the commission came up with a preliminary list of candidates, which included the chairmen of 10 parties that were officially licensed by the Political Parties Committee before 10 May this year. The commission rejected the dozen or so appeals that were submitted by ordinary citizens against candidates for different reasons. The candidates who did not make the final list, meanwhile, were given a two-day grace period to lodge a complaint against the PEC's decision. The commission carefully examined these complaints before a final decision, not subject to appeal, was made. In addition to the rejected independent would- be candidates, the commission excluded 17 party- based candidates as well. According to PEC spokesman Osama Atawiya, most of these rejections stemmed from internal power struggles at the parties themselves. "With the Ahrar Party, for example," Atawiya said, "four people were claiming to be party chairman." One of them was lawyer Talaat El-Sadat, a nephew of late president El-Sadat. El-Sadat had previously indicated that he would back Ghad Party Chairman Ayman Nour if his own candidacy was rejected. Two of the other rejected Ahrar candidates -- Helmi Salem and Hussein Abdallah -- submitted complaints on Monday. Four Al-Shaab Al-Demoqrati Party leaders were also rejected for the same reason. Nine would-be candidates from three other parties -- Adalah Igtimaaiya, Amal, and Misr Al-Fata -- that have long been frozen by the Political Parties Committee were also rejected. The Salam Igtimaai Party's candidate was rejected since the party's leadership council was established after the 10 May deadline set by the law. In the case of the Misr Arab Socialist Party, its officially recognised candidate -- Wahid El-Oqssori -- is being allowed to run, while a second candidate from the party was rejected. "It was clear from the beginning that the list of presidential candidates would boil down to the chairmen of legal political parties," said Mohamed Moussa, the chairman of the People's Assembly Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee. They include President Hosni Mubarak, 77, of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), as well as 41-year-old Ghad Party Chairman Ayman Nour, and 71-year-old Wafd Party Chairman Noaman Gomaa. Also on the list are Ahmed Sabahi (Al-Umma), Wahid El-Oqssori (Arab Socialist Egypt Party), Rifaat El-Agroudi (Al-Wifaq Al-Qawmi), Osama Shaltout (Takaful), Ibrahim Turk (Ittihadi), Fawzi Ghazal (Egypt 2000), and Mamdouh Qenawi (Al-Destouri). After announcing the final list, the PEC will meet on Saturday to start examining rules aimed at regulating the forthcoming election campaigns. Lasting from 17 August to 4 September, these will be closely supervised and monitored by the commission. The presidential elections law empowers the commission with making sure that all candidates have equal access to TV channels, radio stations, and national newspapers. The commission will also make sure that in their promotional campaigns, candidates do not infringe on the private lives of their rivals. The commission has also banned voter opinion polls until one week before the election date. For candidates to be eligible for the government subsidy of LE500,000, and to monitor whether or not they receive illegal foreign funding, the PEC has mandated that they open an account with one of the country's four largest banks. The commission's chairman also held a series of meetings with appeal and cassation court judges last week to coordinate on the crucial matter of judges supervising the presidential elections.
