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| Africa North | |
| Court upholds ban on Egypt presidency contender | |
| 2011-10-17 | |
CAIRO: Egyptian presidential hopeful Ayman Nour on Sunday failed in a bid to overturn a ruling that bars him from running for public office, imposed in 2005 when he was convicted of forging documents.
Egyptian law does not let former convicts run for the presidency until five years after the end of their jail term. "I am not surprised by this verdict because the ruling military council has refused to cancel laws imposing lifetime bans on convicts — it appears to be a line this regime is following," Nour told Reuters shortly after the verdict. He said Sunday's verdict by the Cassation Court, Egypt's highest court of appeal, was invalid as the judge had been a member of the Political Parties Affairs Committee, a body accused of helping former President Hosni Mubarak's government suppress opposition groups including Al-Ghad. "He can't be an opponent and an arbitrator at the same time," Nour said, pledging to press ahead with his presidential campaign. Nour, 48, came a distant second to Mubarak in the 2005 election, Egypt's first and only multi-candidate presidential race. Nour has said the conviction for forging party membership papers was trumped up by the state as part of a harassment campaign against his party. "I will present new reasons to challenge the ruling and I will continue participating in political life," Nour said. Another presidential candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, said: "It's not logical that Ayman Nour gets banned from practising his right to stand for the presidency while the remnants of the regime and the corrupt are running." | |
| Posted by:Steve White |