Egypt's election date vague even after announcement

A year after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians are still not sure when they are to pick their next leader.

This is even after the judicial committee tasked with supervision of the presidential vote announced last Sunday that the poll would be in June.

According to Ahmed Shamseddine, a member of the electoral commission, “the Presidential election will begin in the first week of June and the president will be sworn in by the end of June. Any run-offs will take place within the month of June, and by July we will have an Egyptian president.”

The reason the committee judges offered on the delay is that they have to work out the best timetable for Egyptians abroad to vote; to give ample time to voters and for the sending of the ballots back to Egypt.

Already, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had requested that the voting process for Egyptians living abroad take place over a period of two weeks as the process of counting the votes would require an extra week especially due to the small number of diplomats in addition to the difficulty of sending the ballots by mail.

Farouk Sultan, the head of the Supreme Presidential Election Committee said: "We will postpone the announcement of the specific timeline of the election until we reach a set plan for Egyptians abroad [to vote], to allow them to participate in determining the future of their country.”

The options

It is estimated there are over 1 million Egyptians abroad all registered for voting, and unlike the parliamentary vote casting the ballot this time will be held in one phase and not three. The initial electoral plan was that Egyptians abroad would have five days, three for voting and two for counting, before the election started in Egypt, but that does not seem like a viable option now.

The scheduling of the presidential elections has been one of the issues that protesters and activists want urgently addressed, especially to expedite the handing over of power from the ruling SCAF to a civilian government. Although there was talk of elections in May, it now looks like the originally circled date will stand. Furthermore, a strong belief held by activists is that the military wants to ensure a president who “will support its interests and allow it to have a strong voice in politics even after it formally steps aside.” The last four Egyptian presidents have all been military men.

As per the released schedule, registration for presidential candidates will start on March 10 and end April 8. All independent candidates must have the support of 30,000 eligible voters from 15 of Egypt’s 27 provinces in order to be allowed to vie for office, or get the endorsement of 30 members of parliament.

Recent rumours in Cairo indicated that Arab League's Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi will be adding his name to the presidential hat following media speculation that both the country's ruling military council and the Muslim Brotherhood had agreed to jointly nominate him as their candidate.

On his part, Al-Arabi has denied he is running for the highest office. Muslim Brotherhood has announced they would not support a secular nominee nor one hostile to Islam and are to debate who they should support.

So far, the leading presidential candidates are former Foreign Minister and Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa; ex Muslim Brotherhood member Abdel-Moniem Aboul-Fotouh and Hazem Abu Ismail, who draws his core support from the ultraconservative Salafis, the second largest bloc in parliament after the Brotherhood.