CAIRO: Egypt's Advisory Council to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has called on the Supreme Committee supervising presidential elections to speed up the timetable for the presidential elections, which has been announced to open the door for presidential nominations on March 10. This came at a news conference on Tuesday, where Mohamed Al-Kholi, the media spokesman for the council, said that “most of the members unanimously agreed on the need to write a new constitution for the country before the presidential elections,” calling on the military junta to adopt an “initiative of dialogue between trade unions and political parties and legislative bodies in Egypt on the regulations of the selection of the Constitutional Assembly, which will be assigned with the drafting of the new constitution.” Sameh Ashour, the Vice-President of the council, said that the council expects the anticipation of transfer of power to an elected president, pointing out that the military council “expressed its commitment to open the door for the presidency, stressing the need to have the constitution drafted before power transfer, to regulate the new president's powers.” He stressed that the constitution would not only be drafted by a single political force in parliament, calling on the junta to issue an amendment to Article 60 of the Constitutional Declaration, “to prevent the monopoly of the selection of the constitutional assembly by a certain political party.” The council demanded the Supreme Committee overseeing the presidential elections to choose the Constituent Assembly to draw up a constitution by February 23, after the end of the Shura Council elections. The Advisory Council has also called on the military junta to “activate a comprehensive dialogue between the different segments of society, such as labor unions, peasants, youth, students, women and Copts in the selection of the new constitution.” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/GfsFF Tags: Constitution, featured, Parliament, SCAF Section: Egypt, Latest News
