The Egyptian Parliament's Complaints and Proposals Committee approved on Monday a bill amending the presidential elections law by adding a clause banning former Mubarak regime figures from running for president, the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported.
According to the report, the move seeks to terminate the bids of former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq from running in the upcoming presidential elections. The bill may also jeopardize former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa's presidential bid.
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According to the bill, those who served in leading government positions in the five years leading up to former President Hosni Mubarak's resignation on February 11, 2011 are banned for 10 years from running for the posts of president, vice president, prime minister and government minister. Included are those who were presidential staff, security, parliament members and ruling party officials, Al-Ahram reported.
The committee unanimously approved the bill after installing the changes backed by the manpower minister, especially those made to the paragraphs talking about retroactive application of the law and naming officials appointed by the deposed president.
Head of the committee, Talaat Marzouk, told Al Arabiya that the bill would clearly ban Suleiman, Shafiq and other senior figures of the former regime from occupying senior public posts for 10 years.
“There is a desire to approve this addition rapidly in a plenary session of the parliament,” Marzouk said.
Secretary of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and Muslim Brotherhood Leader Muhammad al-Biltagi said, “This issue has become one of Egypt’s national security, and we must finish this draft law and see it come to light immediately; the public cannot accept what it dismissed on Feb. 10, when Omar Suleiman was the acting president.”
Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate for the presidential elections, Khairat al-Shater, has described Suleiman’s bid to run for president as an "insult to the revolution and the Egyptian people."
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