Egypt's presidential choices

Egypt's electoral commission announced Thursday that Former President Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister was able to run for the top presidential position, only two days after it had disqualified him.

The commission endorsed the list of 13 candidates to run in the forthcoming presidential poll, the first since the uprising that saw Mubarak ousted from the top job.

A law passed earlier this month prohibited anyone who had held the posts of president, vice president or prime minister in Mubarak's last decade of power from standing for election. The law also specified that former top officials from Mubarak's now disbanded party would be barred from election.

Ahmed Shafiq, who was appointed prime minister by the former president just before Mubarak was overthrown last year, was included at the last minute after the committee's original decision on Tuesday to exclude him was overturned, said Faruq Sultan, head of the commission at a press conference announcing the contenders. The candidate list is final and cannot be appealed, commission officials said.

Barred candidates

Earlier this month the commission excluded other nominees including the Muslim Brotherhood's Khairat el-Shater and Omar Suleiman, a former chief spy who was Mubarak's vice president in the final days of his regime, as well as Salafist Hazem Abu Ismail.

Electoral official Hatem Bagato told reporters that Shater had been excluded from running because of a military court conviction, and Suleiman because he did not garner the required voter endorsements. Suleiman's nomination submission angered Islamists, liberal and leftwing groups that lead the uprising.

Popular hardliner Islamist Ismail was also excluded from contention because his mother is a dual US-Egyptian citizen. Electoral law requires the candidate's parents to be Egyptian.

Mubarak officials lose political rights

Egypt's current ruling military council this week enacted a law, stripping senior Mubarak-era officials of political rights, such as the right to vote or run for election for the next 10 years.

"The commission has referred this law to the Higher Supreme Constitutional Court to decide on its legality," said Sultan.

The ruling military party has made assurances the May vote will be free and fair. This will mark the first fair presidential election after three decades of autocratic rule in the country.

Independently owned Egyptian media plan to hold several televised debates, something new in the Arab world.

Egypt's former foreign minister Amr Moussa appears to be leading opinion polls, with Muslim Brotherhood nominee Mohammed Morsi and Abdul-Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former member of the Islamist group, also hot contenders.

Campaigning for the May 23-24 election will begin on April 30, electoral commission head said Sultan.

jw/sms (AFP, dpa, Reuters)