The National Democratic Party (NDP) has chosen its brightest and best members as candidates in the forthcoming parliamentary election, said Mufeed Shehab, minister of state for legal affairs and parliamentary councils, denying that the NDP has made any deals with other parties to splinter votes in favor of those parties' candidates. During his meeting with NDP leaders in Alexandria on Thursday, Shehab also said that the party has fielded more than one candidate in those constituencies where a win is guaranteed. He added that such is the case in only 40 constituencies of a total of 222. He also said that in some constituencies two or three candidates would be fielded in order to reduce the violence associated with the partisanship of large families. The NDP is fielding nearly 850 contenders for 508 constituencies. The multiple candidates per constituency has been held by observers as potentially conducive to vote splitting. Asked if he expects to be appointed as speaker of the parliament in the near future, he replied only that he is running for a seat in parliament in order to serve the people in his constituency and that he has already achieved a highly distinguished position in the fields of science and politics. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
