My Take on the Shafiq Candidacy Debate: He will be eligible to run

Shafiq Candidacy:

Regarding whether Shafiq will be eligible to run for president needs to take into account a number of key parameters including the passing of the disenfranchisement bill by parliament, ratification by SCAF, SPEC approval, constitutional court consideration and (most importantly) the deadline for the final candidate list.

1. Earlier this month the “Disenfranchisement Law” (see below for details of text) was passed in parliament that barred Mubarak era top officials from participating in the presidential election as candidates.
2. SCAF approved the “Disenfranchisement Law” (officially called the Corrupting of Political Life Law) on April 24th, 2012.  SCAF then sent it for a final vote in parliament (where one can assume it will be approved). 
3. However, while approving there were rumors that they “may allow Shafiq to run”.  (http://ow.ly/awicN) 
4. On Tuesday, April 25th there were some rumors that SPEC had officially disqualified Shafiq (e.g. http://ow.ly/awhD8 and http://ow.ly/awii2). 
5. However, late on Tuesday Reuters reported that "the presidential electoral committee (SPEC) headed by Farouk Soltan accepts the appeal of former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, allowing him to contest the presidential race," state news agency MENA reported. (http://ow.ly/awg1c)
6. While there is some discussion of the case being referred to constitutional court it does not seem that would have an impact as: “The Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) is not subject to judicial authority pursuant to Article 28 of the constitutional declaration and has full authorities either to accept or to eliminate presidential candidates.”(http://ow.ly/awhtX)
7. “In the meantime, Ahmed Shafiq received his presidential candidacy voting-symbol, the ladder, from the SPEC headquarters Tuesday afternoon .” (http://ow.ly/awhD8)
8. April 26th is the day the final list of candidates must be submitted by SPEC and that list cannot be challenged after that date.  This is illustrated by the fact that “legal experts say that if the amendment is published second, it might have no legal bearing on the candidate list, allowing Mr Shafiq to stand next month (http://ow.ly/awiwT).  Moreover, “Youm al-Sabaa, said the law would be announced in an official gazette on Thursday and would take effect on Friday.” (http://ow.ly/awiwT)   

So the official list of candidates is here http://ow.ly/awdsP (currently at 12) and Ahmed Shafiq is not one of those listed.  Additionally, the list of rejected candidates is here (http://ow.ly/awiHa)  – yet it also does not include Ahmed Shafiq. 

The www.elections.eg website is actually quite robust and detailed.  Sometimes the materials take a few days to post but it is quite thorough.  While this post focuses on “the Shafiq Question” –  there are some interesting links that I will post below for those interested.



The “Disenfranchisement Law” Details:

• “The decree, numbered 17 for 2012, declared that “those who have worked for the past 10 years as the president, the vice president, prime minister, head of the deposed National Democratic Party, its political office or its general assembly, are banned by this law from practicing their political rights for 10 years, starting February 11, 2012,” read the decree that was published Tuesday.
  

Other tidbits from the www.elections.eg website:

• http://ow.ly/asn7A: Detailed spreadsheet with Omar Suleiman’s signatures and the discrepancies by type and governorate (pretty good!)
  
• http://ow.ly/asnmH: Step by step documentation of how Abu Ismail’s mother’s US passport was confirmed (mainly foreign ministry requests)
  

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