Two parliamentary candidates representing the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) for Cairo's Nasr City district claim they are being pressured by ranking party members to bow out of next month's elections to allow Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmi to run in their stead.
“I'm being pressured to give up my nomination,” Alaa al-Sawi, one of the two NDP nominees, told Al-Masry Al-Youm. "I'm receiving numerous phone calls from party leaders to this effect."
He went on to say that he had been told by a ranking NDP member in Nasr City to relinquish his nomination, "or else we'll look bad if the minister comes around.”
“We respect the minister and don't oppose his nomination, but we object to the party’s violation of its own regulations,” al-Sawi said.
The NDP was putting Fahmi in a "difficult position," he added, going on to express fears that "the elections might be rigged.”
Mohie Georgi, the other NDP candidate for Nasr City, for his part, rejected the notion of relinquishing his candidacy.
“I will not give up my nomination as a matter of self-respect," Georgi said. "I'll stand behind whoever the party chooses, but I won't concede to anyone."
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
