EGYPT - High Election Commission Bar Candidates

"Authorities Bar 3 Leading Candidates in Egypt Race" by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, New York Times 4/14/2012

Excerpt

The Egyptian election authorities eliminated three of the country’s leading presidential candidates in one broad stroke on Saturday night in an unexpected decision that once again threw into disarray the contest to shape the future of Egypt after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

The High Election Commission struck down 10 candidates in all, including the three who have generated the most passion in this polarized nation: Khairat el-Shater, the leading strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist; and Omar Suleiman, Mr. Mubarak’s former vice president and intelligence chief.

A little more than a month before the vote begins, the ruling raised new doubts about the credibility of the election, which is supposed to inaugurate a new democracy after decades of authoritarian rule. It capped a year of opaque decisions behind closed doors, shifting ground rules and timetables, conspiracy theories about who holds true power, turbulence in the streets and growing political polarization during the military-led transition after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

And it comes at a time when the stakes of the presidential race have risen higher than ever: the Islamist majority in Parliament has clashed with the liberal minority over the writing of a constitution and with the military over the control of the government. Some warned it could set off new street protests.

At the same time, the commission, composed of five senior judges appointed by Mr. Mubarak, appeared to prove its independence, shutting down the candidate most linked to the Mubarak government and defying an angry mob of Islamists outside its door. It disqualified each of the candidates on narrow, technical grounds.

Mr. Abu Ismail’s disqualification had been expected; a passport and voter registration had emerged proving that his mother had been an American citizen, which disqualifies him from the presidency under current Egyptian law.

Mr. Shater was ruled ineligible because of a past criminal conviction, even though the charges were widely viewed as trumped up by the Mubarak government to punish him for his role as a leader of the Islamist opposition.

Election authorities said Mr. Suleiman had failed to meet the signature requirement to qualify for the ballot. Of the 30,000 notarized statements he submitted last weekend, most were said to lack adequate authentication or failed to meet geographic distribution requirements, they said.

Egyptians were stunned by the breadth of the decision. On the pan-Arab news network Al Jazeera, the anchor appeared unable to contain a grin, shaking his head in disbelief as a correspondent in Cairo reported the news.