One By One: Why Were These 10 Egyptian Presidential Candidates Disqualified

Judge Hatem Bagato, Sec-Gen Of The PEC

10 candidates (out of a total of 23) have just preliminarily disqualified from the Egyptian Presidential Elections. These 10 candidates have 48 hours for their only chance to appeal their disqualification, but many of them seem to be certainly out of the race. Shorouk News has published detailed reasons on why each candidate was eliminated, and I am sharing this information here as the original was in Arabic.


Quick reminder: to become a presidential candidate, you need either:

A- A minimum of 30,000 citizen endorsement signatures, with at least 15,000 coming from 15 different governorates at a rate of 1000 each.

B- Endorsement of a party that has at least one MP in either house of Parliament.

C- Endorsement of at least 30MPs from both of houses of Parliament.

The preliminarily excluded 10 candidates are:

1- Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail, Lawyer-turned-preacher: The Presidential Elections Committee (PEC) has received evidence that his mother had a US citizenship from October 2006 till January 2010 when she passed away. This is against article 26th of the Constitutional Declaration. This article was passed by more than 77% approval in a referendum.

2- Omar Soleiman, former VP and Intelligence Chief: PEC has excluded more than 3000 of his citizen endorsements, making the geographic distribution of his remaining endorsements insufficient. A candidate not only needs at least 30,000 endorsements, but also needs that at least 1000 comes from 15 different governorates each.

3- Khairat Al-Shater: former MB Deputy Guide, current MB and FJP top nominee: has not received a full clearance from his 2006 "Al-Azhar Militias Case", thereby disqualifying him from elected political activity until then.

4- Ayman Nour, nominee for the Ghad Al-Thawra Party (The Tomorrow Of The Revolution Party): has not received a full clearance from the case for which he was imprisoned following the 2005 presidential elections, when he was accused of falsifying endorsements for the founding of the (then) Al-Ghad (tomorrow) party.

5 & 6- Mortada Mansour (lawyer, former judge) and Ahmed El-Saidy: both are running on behalf of the Masr Al-Qawmy Party (Egyptian Nationalist Party). However, there is a legal leadership vacuum and struggle at the top of the party, leaving the party without official representation, and rendering it ineligible to nominate an official candidate.

7- Ibrahim Al-Gharib, MP: more than 2000 citizen endorsements were excluded, leaving him with less than the required minimum of 30,000 endorsements. Also, PEC has received evidence that he has/had a US passport.

8- Mamdouh Qotb, former Intelligence high ranking figure: nominated by the Al-Hadara party (Civilisation Party), he was disqualified because the members of the party who are MPs have resigned the party in protest of his nomination, rendering the party without a single official seat in parliament, and making his nomination illegal.

9- Ashraf Zaki Barouma, head of Masr Al-Kenana Party: PEC has discovered that he avoided obligatory military conscription, denying him of the right of Political Participation in elected office.

10- Hossam Khairat, Engineer: nominee on behalf of the Egypt Arab Socialist Party. The PEC has received proof that there is a leadership vacuum at the head of the party, leaving it without official representation and a capability to officially nominate candidates.

Follow @Bassem_Sabry Tweet