CAIRO: Some 600 National Democratic Party (NDP) members resigned from the party in the Daqahleya governorate in objection to what they said were obstacles they encountered while attempting to register as candidates for the coming local council elections.
The 600 NDP members also held a protest at the party’s headquarters in Daqahleya, claiming that the party’s leading representative had deliberately stripped some members of the opportunity to participate in the municipal polls slated for April 8.
On the Wednesday parliamentary session – a day before the registration deadline – independent and opposition MPs, many of them belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood group, condemned the security crackdown that has barred them from contesting the over 4,500 local council seats.
The People’s Assembly speaker Fathi Sorour said that if it is proven that the government was responsible for “preventing any candidate from running in the elections, it will be subjecting itself to a criminal investigation . since every citizen has a constitutional right to nominate himself in any elections.
Mufid Shehab, minister of state for legal affairs, also spoke at the session, confirming that the government will punish any “employee or authority taking actions that might delay or discriminate against any candidate, thus stripping him of the right to nominate himself.
Shehab added that opposition and independent candidates were not the only ones who have reported obstacles to registration, stressing that NDP members have also encountered problems.
Al-Wafd MP Mohamed Mostafa Shourdy suggested extending the registration period for an extra four days, but nothing has yet been announced in this regard.
