Egypt’s disqualified presidential candidate says military rulers have no intention of handing over rule

Washington Post
Leila Fadel

Diqualified Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Khairat al-Shater
states that he does not believe that the Egyptian military will relinquish power.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s disbarred presidential candidate, Khairat el Shater, said Wednesday that Egypt’s military rulers have no intention of truly handing power over to civilian rule, but instead are trying to rig the election outcome in their favor.

Shater warned that his elimination from the race was a sign of forgery to come in the presidential election and called the process a “crime against the Egyptian people.”

“The military council is not about a true transition of power,” he said, accusing the council of trying to fix the election in favor of a candidate they could control.

In the same breath, he asked Egyptians to support the Brotherhood’s backup candidate and said the elections should be held on time.

Egypt’s presidential electoral commission on Tuesday permanently disqualified 10 candidates, including three front-runners, upending the contest just weeks before the vote and drawing accusations that the pillars of the Hosni Mubarak regime are still firmly in place.

The decision by a panel of Mubarak-era judges was expected to spark protests, especially from ultraconservative voters angry at the exclusion of their preferred candidate, Hazem Abu Ismail, who preaches a puritanical form of Islam known as Salafism. Hundreds of his rowdy devotees gathered at the commission’s headquarters Tuesday, chanting “God is great,” while security forces surrounded the building.

In addition to Shater, a multimillionaire and the Muslim Brotherhood’s top strategist, Mubarak’s controversial former spy chief and vice president, Omar Suleiman, also was disqualified, according to state television.

The Egyptian Transition Is Not Going To Plan

Business Insider
Dan Murphy

Pity the reporters, political activists, and academics trying to keep up with Egypt's transition "plan." Every day, it seems, new moves by the ruling military, the courts, and the quasi-independent electoral commission turn expectations on their head.

It's human to want a see a pattern in all this, find a guiding hand behind all the maneuvering (a Machiavellian or a benevolent one, depending on your inclinations). Analysis is supposed to tease out the broader pattern, identify a narrative that helps make sense of events. But in the daily flow of statements, revelations, and warnings, I can't find anything but an unguided mess.

Writing at Foreign Policy, political scientist Nathan Brown calls "the phrase 'Egyptian transition process'... tragicomically oxymoronic in light of the dizzying series of developments over the past month."

The latest news is the disqualification of 10 Egyptian presidential aspirants a little more than six weeks from the scheduled May 23 vote. Most were no-hopers, but three are heavyweights.

Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a fiery, and to many frightening, salafy leader (he called Osama bin Laden a "martyr" after the Al Qaeda leader was killed in Pakistan) was tossed from the race because his deceased mother was a US citizen (it's Egypt's own birther controversy; Abu Ismail denies the claim).

Authorities Bar 3 Leading Candidates in Egypt Race

New York Times
David D. Kirkpatrick

From left: Khairat el-Shater, the leading strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood;
Omar Suleiman, Hosni Mubarak’s former vice president and intelligence chief;
and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist.

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.

Row over Egypt's new constitution reflects wider tensions

CNN

(CNN) -- Egypt's administrative court has suspended the country's 100-member constitutional assembly, tasked with drafting a new national constitution. But what does that say about the country's progress toward political reform?

More than a year since President Hosni Mubarak was forced to stand down, the outcome of Egypt's "revolution" remains unclear.

The suspension of the constitutional assembly is significant, says Khaled Elgindy, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, because the document it draws up is supposed to be the "fundamental institution of the new Egypt" -- and this throws up questions over its legitimacy.

The row also highlights growing tensions between secular and Islamist groups and the ruling military council, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has not yet handed power to a civilian government.

It had been hoped the new constitution would be ready before presidential elections due in late May, with a run-off vote in June.

Read more about the disbanding of the constitutional group

But that time frame now seems unlikely, analysts say, opening up the prospect that a new president is elected without a clear constitutional framework by which to govern, or checks on his powers.

That said, whether the assembly as it stood could have produced a consensus draft that would have convincingly won the nation's backing in a referendum is a moot point.

The move by the administrative court in Cairo followed weeks of street protests and objections from many political and civic society groups.

They argued the assembly was dominated by the Islamists -- the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist Nour party, who hold a majority in parliament -- and that as a result it would not draft a constitution that was representative of the country's diverse society, and that Islamic rules would have too much sway.

Several liberal and secular members of the assembly had already withdrawn because of the criticism, as well as the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church and Al-Azhar Institution, one of the most influential Islamic entities.