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| Omar Suleiman's campaign says he was disqualified because of a problem with collecting voter endorsements [Reuters] |
Three of Egypt's main presidential candidates have filed appeals after the election commission barred them from running, shaking up an already tumultuous race and political transition.
The election commission is expected to decide on Tuesday which appeals will be reviewed, and a final list of candidates will be released April 26, just under a month before the May 23-24 vote.
This comes as the United States on Monday voiced support for "free and fair" elections in Egypt but declined to wade into a debate over the disqualification of leading presidential candidates.
"Our only concern is that this is a free and fair and transparent process, that it move forward in a way that meets the aspirations of the Egyptian people," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
"But it's not for us to comment on the political process itself," he said.
The three disqualified would-be presidential candidates are Hazem Abu Ismail, the ultra-conservative Salafi candidate, Khairat al-Shater of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Omar Suleiman, the former intelligence chief.
Legal grounds
They were barred along with seven others on Saturday on legal grounds.
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| | Omar Suleiman: Failed to get endorsements from 15 provinces as per law. |
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| | Khairat el-Shater: Released from jail in March last year after being imprisoned on charges of terrorism and money laundering. Candidates can only run in elections six years after being released or pardoned. |
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| | Hazem Abu Ismail: Mother allegedly holds dual US-Egyptian citizenship, violating election rules that mandate all candidates, their parents and wives have only Egyptian nationality. |
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Abu Ismail, a lawyer-turned-preacher with a devoted following, was reportedly barred from running because his late mother allegedly held dual American-Egyptian citizenship.
Under a new Egyptian electoral law, the candidate, the candidate's spouse or the candidate's parents cannot hold any citizenship other than Egyptian.
Abu Ismail has questioned why the election commission had not made public the documents that allegedly prove his mother held US citizenship.
Shater's candidacy had been challenged because of his previous criminal record.
Shater, who was deputy chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood - banned under Mubarak - had been in jail on charges of terrorism and money laundering. He was granted an amnesty this year.
His lawyers say that this means he is allowed to run.
Lack of voter endorsements
Suleiman, Mubarak's head of intelligence for two decades, was briefly appointed vice-president, but quit the post in February 2011 when the president resigned following weeks of mass protests against his 30-year rule.
Suleiman sent his assistant to file an appeal on Sunday. Suleiman's campaign says he was disqualified because of a problem with collecting voter endorsements, which means he has little chance of winning an appeal since he cannot submit new signatures.
This comes as Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Egypt's military leader, met with the heads of 17 political parties and groups on Sunday to discuss the dilemma surrounding the constituent assembly and the writing of the new constitution ahead of the first presidential poll.
Tantawi stressed that the new constitution had to be written by June 30, in time for the new presidency.
A panel created by parliament is supposed to draw up the document.
Last month, the Brotherhood and other Islamists, who hold 70 per cent of parliament's seats, formed a 100-member panel. However, a court suspended that panel due to fears that they it was trying to control the process.
The parliament must still vote on the final makeup.
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Security forces are locked in fierce battles with opposition fighters in one Syrian city and have been shelling another, activists say.
Monday's reports came as a handful of UN monitors entrusted with overseeing a ceasefire were due to begin work.
President Bashar al-Assad's forces killed two civilians in the central city of Hama, and were fighting rebels in Idlib in the northwest, while also shelling the flashpoint city of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an opposition network, said.
At least 41 people, mostly civilians, have been reported killed by activists in violence since the UN-backed ceasefire came into effect on Thursday morning, prompting Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, to urge Syria to ensure the ceasefire does not collapse.
An advance team of five international observers arrived in Damascus late on Sunday, the UN said.
The head of the team, Colonel Ahmad Himmiche from Morocco, said he was optimistic the mission would succeed.
"We will start our mission as soon as possible and we hope it will be a success,'' he told the Associated Press news agency as he left a Damascus hotel along with the observers on Monday morning.
Ground rules discussed
Annan's spokesperson said the monitors' team met Syrian foreign ministry officials on Monday to discuss ground rules, including what freedom of movement they would have.
The delegation, the first of 30 monitors the UN Security Council approved on Saturday, will set up headquarters and prepare routines so the mission can verify that a cessation of hostilities is holding.
Ban has urged the Syrian government to grant the UN observers full freedom of movement to monitor the ceasefire.
Syrian authorities have said they cannot guarantee the safety of the observers and that they would have to be informed of all movements of UN teams to assure their safety.
Kieran Dwyer, a UN peacekeeping department spokesperson, said further monitors would arrive in Syria in "coming days".
The next 25 would come from missions around the Middle East and Africa "so we can move people quickly and they are experienced in the region," he told the AFP news agency.
Kofi Annan, the international peace envoy who negotiated the ceasefire, wants more than 200 observers to be deployed in Syria.
But the Security Council has said there would only be a full mission if the violence came to a halt.
Syria's SANA state news agency said Syria "welcomed" the observer mission, and hoped the monitors would see for themselves the "crimes" committed by "armed terrorist groups".
The Security Council has demanded full freedom of movement for the UN team, but critics of Syria say the government could obstruct its work.
The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, speaking in Rome on Monday, criticised the peace plan and the UN mission to Syria, saying both had slim chances of succeeding.
He said arming the opposition was a better option.
The failure of an Arab League observer mission earlier this year was blamed in part on government restrictions imposed on the observers, including having to travel with government minders.
'Non-stop shelling'
On the ground in Syria, there appeared to be no let-up in the violence. Tarek Badrakhan, an activist from the battered and almost deserted Homs district of al-Khalidiya, said the government had resumed its intense bombardment of the neighbourhood early on Monday for the third consecutive day.
"The shelling hasn't stopped for one minute since this morning. There are buildings on fire right now,'' he said via Skype.
Badrakhan and other activists said the army appeared to be on a push to take control of the last opposition-held districts in Homs, and was pounding al-Khaldiya from three sides.
He said half of the nearby district of al-Bayada fell under the army's control on Sunday night. Troops were trying to storm al-Qarabis and Jurat al-Shayah but the rebel Free Syria Army (FSA) was repelling them, he said, referring to the group of armed opposition fighters and defectors from the Syrian army.
"We hope that the observers would come to Homs as soon as possible because if things go on like this, there won't be anything left called Homs,'' Badrakhan said.
Both the Local Co-ordination Committees, an activists' network, and the SOHR confirmed the intense shelling of Homs and the two deaths in the city of Hama on Monday.
Continuing assaults apparently perpetrated by Syrian government forces have raised doubts over Assad's commitment to the Annan peace plan.
"I have never seen a government that sends armoured vehicles to deal with armed gangs," Louay Safi, a member of the Syrian National Council, told Al Jazeera.
"I think the only thing at this point that will end [this violence] is to inject some sort of threat, or to change the balance of power on the ground."
While Syrian forces have mostly halted shelling of rebel-held neighbourhoods, with the exception of Homs they have ignored calls to pull troops out of urban centres.
The UN estimates that more than 9,000 people have been killed in violence related to the uprising against Assad's government since protests began in March 2011.
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| Gulf nations to meet over Iran island dispute |
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UAE summons Iranian ambassador over Ahmadinejad's visit to Abu Musa, with Gulf states set to discuss sovereignty row. Last Modified: 16 Apr 2012 11:58 |
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The United Arab Emirates has summoned Iran's ambassador to Abu Dhabi to denounce a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a disputed island in the Gulf, the emirates' official state news agency said.
The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, "summoned the Iranian ambassador ... and handed him a letter of protest, denouncing" Ahmadinejad's visit on Wednesday to Abu Musa, the Emirates news agency (WAM) reported on Monday.
Gargash called the visit a "violation of UAE sovereignty".
The move came after Abu Dhabi recalled its ambassador to Tehran last Wednesday and lodged a protest with the United Nations over the visit, stressing that the territorial dispute should be resolved in talks or at the International Court of Justice.
On Sunday, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the UAE foreign minister, met ambassadors representing UN Security Council member states in Abu Dhabi to convey the "UAE's condemnation of this provocative visit," WAM said.
"This will be an extraordinary meeting based on the UAE's request to discuss the Iranian president's recent visit to the island," a GCC official said.
Tehran has insisted that Ahmadinejad's trip, during which he said historical documents proved Iran's claim that "the Persian Gulf is Persian," was a purely "domestic issue".
Foreign ministers of the six Gulf Co-operation Council states are scheduled to hold a special meeting in the Qatari capital on Tuesday to discuss the dispute.
Both Iran and the UAE claim territorial sovereignty over Abu Musa and two other islands in the southern Gulf.
Iran, then under the rule of the Western-backed shah, gained control in 1971 of the islands of Abu Musa, Lesser Tunb and Greater Tunb, as Britain granted independence to its Gulf protectorates and withdrew its forces.
Abu Musa, the only inhabited island of the three, was placed under joint administration in a deal with Sharjah, now part of the UAE.
Abu Dhabi says Iran has since taken control of the entire island and has built an airport and military base there.
The general secretary of the UAE Football Association said it had cancelled a friendly match with Iran this week due to rising tensions over the disputed island.
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