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Egypt’s election commission has disqualified ten candidates from running for the country’s presidential election, including top Islamist candidates and the former spy chief of deposed president Hosni Mubarak. “This is a political decision,” Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Abdelmonein Abdel Maqsud told the official MENA news agency.
The commission said 10 candidates were disqualified from running in Egypt’s presidential election for failing to meet conditions for candidacy.
Among those barred were Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Khairat Al-Shater, former spy chief Omar Suleiman and Salafi aspirant Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail.
Commission official Tarek Abul Atta told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Shater was banned because he was recently release from prison without being pardoned.
Under law, candidates can run in election six years after being released or pardoned.
Shater had been in jail on charges of terrorism and money laundering during the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak, but was released in March last year.
Suleiman, who was appointed a vice-president by Mubarak in the dying days of his three-decade regime, was disqualified because he failed to get endorsements from 15 provinces as per law.
Abu Ismail was barred from the race because his mother holds the American nationality.
Under Egypt’s election rules, all candidates, their parents and their wives must have only Egyptian citizenship.
Last week, an Egyptian court had cleared the way for Abu-Ismail to join the race after ruling that his mother was not a US citizen.
Others who have been disqualified include Ayman Nur, who caught the world’s attention when he challenged Mubarak in 2005 presidential elections.
Nur was imprisoned shortly after those elections and released on health grounds in 2009. He was banned under the same rule as the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate.<\/p>\n