Former spy chief Omar Suleiman has announced his presidential campaign would be put on hold following an official decision excluding him from the race, while the campaign backing the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, Khairat al-Shater, said it would proceed in spite of the decision.
The Presidential Elections Commission announced on Saturday the exclusion of Shater and Suleiman, along with eight other potential candidates, for various reasons.
On his Facebook page, Suleiman said he would freeze his campaign activities until the Presidential Elections Commission decides on his appeal. The commission had said that citizen endorsements collected by Suleiman to allow him to run did not fulfill the requirement for geographical distribution.
Independent candidates are required to gather 30,000 notarized signatures from citizens of 15 separate governorates, with no less than 1,000 signatures from each.
In a statement, Suleiman's campaign expressed its commitment to the commission’s decisions. Its members urged backers to send notarized endorsements to the campaign headquarters, and requested the Justice Ministry provide the campaign with copies of its endorsements, other copies of which they claimed were lost when the campaign was attacked by unknown assailants.
In a statement to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Reem Mamdouh, a spokesperson for Suleiman’s official campaign, denied using illegitimate means, relying on the intelligence services or pressuring officials to collect the endorsements. She attributed the commission’s decision to an error in the signatures gathered by the campaign.
Meanwhile, Khairat al-Shater’s campaign stressed that it would resume its activities despite the Presidential Elections Commission’s decision. The exclusion cited Shater’s prison term under former President Hosni Mubarak, which Shater says was politically motivated.
Mourad Ali, a media official at Shater’s campaign, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that it would proceed with campaign activities in the belief that Shater’s legal status is sound.
The legal committee of the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, convened on Sunday to prepare its challenge to the commission’s decision. The committee’s chairman, Mohktar al-Ashry, voiced concerns that Suleiman might return to the race after collecting missing endorsements, though such a move would be illegal, as the deadline for candidacy applications was 8 April.
Meanwhile, the FJP’s legal adviser, Ahmed Abu Baraka, said the challenge against Shater’s exclusion will be filed on Monday, the last day to challenge the decision. He added that the party will not campaign for FJP chairman Mohamed Morsy unless Shater is excluded.
The Brotherhood fielded Morsy as a backup candidate in case the current situation played out.
Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm
