CAIRO: The Administrative Court said Sunday that it has no jurisdiction over the lawsuit filed by the parliamentary candidates in the ninth constituency and that these cases are under the Court of Cassation's authority. Lawyer Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Center for the Independence of Judiciary and Legal Profession, and Ahmed El-Darawy, independent candidate affiliated with the Salafi Al-Nour Party, along with Al-Adl liberal party and the Revolution Youth Coalition, filed a lawsuit against the Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) demanding a recount of the votes in the Maadi-Helwan constituency. In the ninth constituency, outspoken journalist Mostafa Bakry was announced the winner of the professional seat with 374,550 votes. However, according to his rivals the announced results do not correspond to the number previously posted on the official news outlet of the SEC. Amin claimed that the official website initially said that the only winner of the constituency is Ramadan Omar (workers), while a run-off would take place between him and El-Darawy on the professional seat. He added that this is inconsistent with what the head of the SEC said in the press conference announcing the results. The website currently says that Bakry is the winner. El-Darawy, an ex-police officer, told the press that before the end of the counting process with five boxes remaining, he had earned 102,000 votes and the SEC announced that he came close to Amin, while Bakry came in third place. "Bakry was so far from competition," Amin said. In a televised interview Sunday, Bakry said that this lawsuit is against the SEC and the judiciary not against him. "This is an insult to the judiciary and to the public who casted their votes in the elections," he said. Al-Osbou' newspaper, whose chief editor is Bakry, reported that he filed a complaint to the General Prosecutor against Amin and Sherif Mohamed Idris, a candidate in the same constituency who also backed Amin in the lawsuit, accusing them of forgery. He said they fabricated a false document and attributed it to the SEC's website. Bakry also accused them of defamation by questioning his parliamentary win. Amin denied the charges and told Daily News Egypt that they managed to obtain official documents from the SEC that prove that there has been manipulation in the counting process. "However, the SEC didn't say a word in this regard and didn't order a recount. I don't know who the SEC is working with," Amin said. According to law, he added, the Court of Cassation is supposed to issue its ruling within 90 days of filing the appeal. "Although we proved to the Administrative Court the rigging that happened, the Court of Cassation will have to restudy the case," Amin told DNE. On the same token, lawyer Khaled Ali, who filed the complaint against the results, said that the announced results do not align with the recorded number of valid votes. “We are not appealing the results, we are appealing the vote-counting process,” he previously told DNE. “There have been imaginary numbers that exceed the actual count by 130,000,” he explained. According to Ali, the total number of votes in the constituency is 608,503, which leaves a discrepancy of 137,115 votes with the number of votes both candidates received, which totals 745,618, according to the SEC. Bakry issued his membership card in the new parliament Sunday.
