Ayman Nour remains in the political wilderness unless the conviction banning him from standing in elections is overturned, reports Mohamed Abdel-Baky Days after Hosni Mubarak stepped down as president Ayman Nour announced that the revolution was like "a new birth". Now, he said, he would be free to prove his innocence of the charges of fraud that were brought against him after he came second to Mubarak in Egypt's first -- and so far only -- multi-candidate presidential poll. The founder of Ghad Party had his hopes dashed when on Sunday the Appeals Court rejected his petition to have his conviction overturned. The outstanding criminal record prevents him from standing in parliamentary elections, and if it is not overturned soon, will bar him from the presidential poll. Nour issued a statement saying that he has filed a complaint to the prosecutor-general against Talaat El-Refaai, the judge who issued the verdict. The case should not, Nour argues, have been heard by El-Refaai who, in his capacity as deputy head of the Political Party Affairs Committee, had rejected the application for a licence by the New Ghad Party. Nour subsequently challenged El-Refaai's decision which was duly overturned. A few weeks ago, Nour had already filed a complaint against El-Refaai's decision to turn down the request to establish a new party. Nour, however, won the case and was licensed to establish the party. "The same person I opposed in court last week was selected to rule in the case of my life," Nour said in his statement. In May the Court of Cassation referred Nour's petition for a retrial to one of its panels. For four months he was left waiting for a ruling, only for it to be delivered three days before the deadline for parliamentary candidates to register. "The military council pushed for a delay in the court ruling in order to make me ineligible to run for parliament election and in an attempt to stymie my chances of standing in the presidential elections," says Nour. "We thought that the revolution would end attempts to exclude the Ghad Party and political activists like me, but it seems that the train of the revolution has not arrived at the platforms of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [SCAF] and the judiciary." Nour was imprisoned in December 2005 by a State Security Court shortly after finishing second to deposed president Mubarak. He has always insisted that the case against him was fabricated with the aim of undermining his political future because of the threat he presented to plans for Gamal Mubarak to inherit power from his father. In 2006 the Court of Cassation upheld the verdict. Despite the jail term and an ongoing smear campaign in the state-owned media Nour continued criticising the former regime from his prison cell. In February 2009 he was released on health grounds, with his conviction still standing. Nour was a member of parliament for Bab Al-She'riya from 1995 to 2005 but had to resign his seat after his conviction. In a press conference on Monday the New Ghad Party said its higher committee had elected Nour as party leader and that the party would challenge the latest ruling which is described as "another setback for freedoms in Egypt". Preventing members of the NDP from running in elections was one of the goals of the revolution, not banning those who suffered under Mubarak's 30 years of misrule," says Amr Hashim Rabie, an expert at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. Several potential presidential candidates have condemned the court ruling. Hamdeen Sabahi announced his support for Nour's appeal request, saying that it was "illogical" that Nour be banned from running in the election while longtime members of the now defunct -- and thoroughly discredited -- NDP can run. Amr Moussa said in a TV interview that the SCAF should end the problem immediately by issuing a pardon for Nour whose "history of struggle against the Mubarak regime is sufficient to deserve one".
