CAIRO – The Higher Elections Commission (HEC) will on Thursday announce final lists of candidates standing in Egypt's parliamentary polls due to start later this month, as the Cabinet drafted a new bill organising the voting for the country's eight million expatriates. “After candidates barred by judicial rulings or by decisions of the HEC's committee of appeals, the final lists of hopefuls for the parliamentary elections will be announced on Thursday (today),” said the head of the HEC Judge Abdel Moez Ibrahim. He added that the lists would be published in two mass-circulation newspapers. “However, in case some other court rulings were issued, new lists of contenders will be issued,” Ibrahim was quoted as telling reporters. Egypt's parliamentary elections will start on November 28. They will be held on three stages, nine governorates each. More than 12,000 candidates are expected to run in the first polls after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak on February 11. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, meanwhile, said on Wednesday the Cabinet submitted to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) a bill organising the voting process of Egyptians living abroad. “According to the new bill, the ambassadors and envoys will follow up the voting process instead of judges,” Sharaf told reporters, stressing that this is the first time Egyptian expatriates are allowed to vote. The Egyptian Premier pointed out that the new bill would ensure that the elections could not be void as it granted the judiciary power to members of the diplomatic corp. Until yesterday, around 145,000 expatriates enrolled in the website of the HEC and the embassies and consulates abroad in the registration process which will end on Saturday. According to election laws in Egypt and the constitutional declaration in effect since March, judges should overview all stages of electoral process, a main demand by the revolutionaries who spearheaded the protests which toppled Mubarak. “The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) assigned 9,000 judges to overview the elections. However, security authorities should ensure the safety of them,” Judge Alaa Qandil said after a meeting of the SJC and the Judges' Club members. He stressed that the judges' decision to overview the elections came in respect of the people's trust in judiciary. “This is a national duty of judges,” said Qandil. However, Khaled Fouad, a lawyer and the head of a political party, yesterday filed a lawsuit with the administrative court calling for the exclusion of judges who overviewed elections under Mubarak. “The judges who reviewed the rigged elections during the Mubarak era could not help produce a transparent and fair poll,” Fouad told The Gazette. The SCAF took power after Mubarak had been toppled and promised to hold parliamentary elections within six months that will be followed to presidential ones. The main job of the upcoming parliament is to draft the Constitution.
