Islamists move to stop Mubarak ally running for presidency

Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament has passed a bill that strips senior figures in former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime of their political rights for ten years.

Yesterday’s vote was designed to stop Mubarak’s former spy chief and vice-president Omar Suleiman from running in next month’s presidential election.

The law will come into effect only if the military council that took over when Mubarak stepped down last year ratifies it.

This is unlikely to happen before the election commission issues a final list of presidential candidates, which is expected later this month. Decisions of the election commission cannot be appealed.

The law covers those who served in top posts, from the president down to leaders of his ruling party, during the ten years prior to Mubarak’s fall.

In an interview published yesterday, Mr Suleiman said the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood’s fielding of a presidential candidate had “horrified” Egyptians. The group, which has emerged as Egypt’s most powerful political bloc, has reversed an earlier decision not to field a candidate. Mr Suleiman said: “If Egypt falls under the rule of [Islamist] groups, it will suffer isolation and its people will suffer from the inability to communicate with others.”