CAIRO - Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit has said his country rejected any foreign demands regarding international monitoring of the presidential elections scheduled later next year. "There is nothing new in this issue. As President Hosni Mubarak said in his address to the Parliament on Sunday Egypt never accepts any foreign guardianship on its internal affairs," Abul Gheit said Monday. His remarks came as the United States has recently urged Egypt to abolish the decades-long Emergency Law ahead of the 2011 presidential elections and the European Union renewed its request for Egypt to allow foreign monitors on the vote. "Egypt is on the correct path and its leadership seeks to support the Egyptian people in all walks of life. There is nothing new in this," Abul Gheit said. Egypt has rejected calls by some foreign powers to allow foreign monitors to follow up the parliamentary elections held late in November and earlier this month. However, some representatives of European countries were allowed to enter some certain constituencies. The recent parliamentary elections came at the centers of legal battles. "The cases heard by the administrative courts in the run-up to the elections hit 4,299," read a report by administrative courts across the nation. It added that the courts issued rulings against the Higher Election Commission in 1,450 cases. "Only 15 verdicts were implemented," read the report, which pointed out that some 1,426 of them rulings were issued by the Higher Administrative Court, whose rulings cannot be appealed. Meanwhile, Fathi Sorour, the Speaker of the newly elected legislature, said that he had referred all the court rulings to the Court of Cassation, which is Egypt's highest judicial authority. "The Parliament cannot tolerate any fake MP among its members," Sorour told the official Egyptian TV Monday night.
