CAIRO: A National Democratic Party member excluded from his party's nominations for the upcoming People's Assembly elections filed a lawsuit on Thursday at the State Council Higher Administrative Court to obligate Supreme Electoral Commission to let him run as an independent. Head of Egyptian Union for Human Rights Organization Naguib Gobrael told Daily News Egypt that he filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Coptic candidate Magdy Keddis Tawedrous Armanious who was excluded from NDP's list despite the high support he got in the party's electoral divisions elections that were held to choose NDP candidates. Gobrael confirmed that it is unconstitutional to deprive the candidate from his right to run as independent if not nominated by the party. "The party's coercion not to let its members run as independents if not chosen by the party is unconstitutional and against the law of practicing political rights," said Gobrael. "Both the constitution and the law guaranteed all citizens the right to vote and nominate themselves." Gobrael had earlier said that the Coptic community was dismayed with the lack of representation in the NDP electoral lists. Only 10 Copts, out of estimated 700, were nominated by the NDP, which also fielded Qena MP Abdel Rehim El-Ghoul who was rumored to be connected with the Nagaa Hammadi shooting of six Christians and one Muslim guard outside a church last January. The Armanious filed the lawsuit against Sawfat El-Sherif as the head of his electoral division, SEC head Al-Sayed Omar and Minister of Interior Habib El-Adly who is responsible for receiving the nomination applications. He asked the court to stop the SEC's decision to decline his request for nomination and accept his appeal to run as independent. "I applied to run for the PA elections in the NDP's electoral division in Al-Gamaleyya and Manshe't Nasser constituency with all my paper work completed and I got more than 90 percent of the criteria set by the NDP," the lawsuit documents quote Armanious as saying. "Four days before the results of the electoral division are out, the representatives of the first defendant requested to take my national ID. I later learnt that they kept my ID to prevent me from applying as an independent if the party did not accept my nomination. I tried to get my ID back but only got it after the deadline of the nomination application was due." Armanious told Daily News Egypt that his right to be nominated is granted by the constitution. "The NDP does not have the right to deprive me from this right because of the agreement with the members not to run as independent if not nominated by the party, which is an unconstitutional agreement," Armanious said.
