CAIRO: A total of 2,910 nominations have been received for Egypt's upcoming parliamentary elections. Of those, there are 2,721 candidates for the People's Assembly, the lower house of parliament, and 187 for the Shura Council, which is the upper house, according to Abdel Moez Ibrahim, chairman of the Higher Committee of Elections. He said there are four partisan electoral lists. Ibrahim said 421 candidates for the People's Assembly and 76 for Shura Council were received today, in addition to the two lists from the Reform and Development Party. Ibrahim asked for youth and women to submit their nominations because thus far their percentage among candidates is very low. He said the committee agreed to the parties' call to extend the deadline for submitting candidacy papers to the judicial committees until they decide who will run in the elections. He assured that this time will not be for the parties, but for candidates on the list system, which will give youth and women a chance to run in the elections. Yousri Abdallah, Chairman of the Technical office and member of the High Committee of Elections, said the rules of choosing the election symbols start with the list and give priority to the parties. If the party had an election symbol during the elections from 2005 to 2010, the committee will agree to give it the symbol again. The symbols will be allocated according to the precedence of the party in the foundation, and if the parties were founded at the same time the committee will use the lot system. Regarding applying the Law of Treachery on the candidates who were members of the former National Democratic Party, the committee will apply it retrospectively. The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party submitted today papers of seven candidates for the chairs of the People's assembly. The party also submitted he papers of only one candidate for the Shura Council.
