CAIRO - Any person the public don't like won't be chosen to represent the National Democratic Party (NDP) in the next legislative elections, Secretary-General of the ruling party Safwat el-Sherif told a gathering of young people from the Nile Basin countries in the coastal city of Alexandria Monday. He added that the ruling party would “review and develop” the rules of its electoral college in order to guarantee that public opinion would be the main principle for selecting the party's candidates. "The party will never refuse the people's wishes, and unpopular candidates will be prevented from running under our umbrella," el-Sherif stressed. Elections for the People's Assembly (the Lower House of Egypt's Parliament) are due next October in Egypt. They will be the biggest such elections ever, as 64 seats for women have been added to a legislature that is already 454 strong. Held in the first week of June, the elections for the Shura Council (the Upper House of the Parliament) were swept by President Hosni Mubarak's party. Of the 88 seats contested, the NDP captured 80, with 14 candidates from the ruling party running unopposed.
