Former member of the Egypt’s Parliament Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat renounced Monday his intention to run for the upcoming presidential election. During a press conference, Al-Sadat said, “indicators of the electoral scene have not been reassuring”.
“The idea of running for the presidential election is not a joke and there is no way for a real reformation in Egypt but agreeing that Egypt is a country for all her sons,” said Al-Sadat at a press conference at the Heliopolis headquarters of the Reform and Development Party
Earlier on Sunday, Al-Sadat, who is the head of the Reform and Development Party, said that he had filed a request to Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal to allow him to demonstrate his programme before members of parliament in order to gain the endorsements necessary to enable him to run for the election.
During a phone call with CBC television channel, Al-Sadat added that he did not receive an answer from parliament, stressing that he has addressed a similar letter to the National Electoral Commission.
A week ago, the Egyptian National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced that the 2018 presidential election would begin abroad on 16 March and on 26 March in Egypt. The election abroad will take place along three days, from 16-18 March, and will continue inside Egypt from 26-28 of that month, while the result will be announced on 2 April.
If a run-off is needed, a second election would take place outside Egypt from 19-21 April and from 24-26 April 2018 inside Egypt.
A run-off would take place if no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote.
The commission will receive applications between 20 and 29 January and the list of candidates will be published in state-run Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar newspapers by the end of January.
In February last year, Al-Sadat was officially dismissed from parliament after 468 members voted in favour of dropping his membership, after being found guilty of leaking a copy of the NGOs draft law to the Dutch ambassador before the law was officially issued, according to the final report of parliament’s legislative affairs committee.
