EGYPT: General secretary of Egyptian Tahrir Party, Essam Mohey, presented an official request to Egypt's ruling military council with a request to delay the parliamentary elections for two weeks. The request was signed by 16 Egyptian political parties who said the parliamentary elections must be postponed because political the law of exclusion has not yet been issued. Members of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP) therefore have the highest rate of candidates. Also, the final electoral regions are announced late, party alliances broke because they did not have time to negotiate. Tahrir Party held a meeting at its headquarter on Friday October 21. Representatives of Egyptian political parties attended the meeting, including: • Egyptian Tahrir • Social Constitution • Social Arab Egypt • Free Republican • Social People's Alliance • Democratic Union • Democratic People • Youth of Change • Young Egypt • Social Justice • Al-Khodr • Arab for Justice and Equality • Social Solidarity • Egypt 200 Representatives of the parties asked the military council to extend the application for parliamentary elections to Thursday October 27. Candidates could not reach the committee, which receive their documents on time because the lawyers' protest closed some courts. Also Youth parties could not organize their electoral lists and choose candidates during this short time. The parties also requested a separate application for the Shura Council elections from the application for the People's Assembly elections. Head of the Free Constitution, Mamdouh Kenawi, said these demands are reasonable and constitutional. Social People's Alliance representative, Hassan Abdul Wahab, said the military council announced about the electoral region just one day before opening and receiving the applications of candidates. That put party alliances under great pressure and broke their alliance. Abdul Ehad opposed the administrative obstinacy and the amount of documents the candidate must prepare. He also opposed the fact that officials in the electoral committee are not using computers, which could get all information about candidates through their national identity card. The parties participated in the meeting disagreed about participating or boycotting the parliamentary elections if the military council does not meet their demands.
