CAIRO – 2 October 2023: Egypt’s National Election Authority (NEA) said that ‘online’ candidate presidential endorsements from citizens are not eligible, and that anyone who wishes to issue presidential candidate endorsement form, must head to one of the designated notary offices estimated at 217 offices nationwide.
According to the NEA Resolution No. 7 of 2023 regulating the rules and procedures for citizens’ support for those wishing to run for Presidency, it stipulated that ‘every citizen registered in the voter database has the right to support any candidate wishing to run for Presidency, as no single citizen may support more than one candidate.’
According to the law, these are the legal steps to issue presidential endorsement form:
- Apply to one of the notary offices to issue a form prepared for this purpose.
- A citizen may not support more than one candidate at once.
- Each issued endorsement form, must not include any endorsements for more than one candidate.
- The authentication officer verifies the citizen’s identity based only on the data of the national ID card or passport.
- The name of the supporter, his place of residence, the governorate in which he is located, the national ID card number, must all be stated in the form.
- The supporting citizen must sign the form with his handwriting or thumbprint.
- The endorsement form is made in two copies, signed by the supporting citizen, one of which is delivered to him, and the other is kept in the notarization office.
- Egyptian expats who wish to support one of the candidacy applicants, must follow same rules, and their signatures will be authenticated by diplomatic and consular missions.
- Whoever is proven to repeatedly support one candidate or more than one candidate shall be punished by imprisonment for a period of not less than 6 months and a fine of not less than LE 5,000 and not exceeding LE 10,000, or by one of the two penalties.
In a statement on Sunday, the NEA said a “small number” of notary offices issuing endorsement forms have experienced electronic errors for a “brief” period of time.
Furthermore, the NEA received inquiries and complaints regarding crowding at notary offices, which are fully designated for issuing presidential election endorsement forms.
To tackle the issues, the NEA ordered providing notary offices that see a high turnout by citizens with more trained employees and tablets to raise the pace of issuing the forms and completely eliminate crowdedness in these places.
The NEA said it also supervised directly the efforts of fixing technical errors in a small number of notary offices and making sure such errors do not reoccur.
The election authority ordered extending the working hours in these offices in order to issue all forms requested by citizens to endorse their favored potential candidate.
Thousands of citizens gathered at the notary offices over the past week to issue endorsement forms for figures willing to run for president in the upcoming elections, scheduled to be held in December.
According to the law, any citizen willing to run for president must first obtain endorsement from at least 25,000 citizens in 15 or more governorates in order for their candidacy to be accepted.
Instead, a citizen can run for elections in case he managed to secure endorsement from 20 or more members of the House of Representatives.
Political party leaders and presidential hopefuls Farid Zahran, Hazem Omar and Abdel Sanad Yamama have all obtained the required endorsements from the parliament.
Incumbent President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has not yet announced his plans to run in elections but tens of political parties and unions have urged him to run for another six-year term.
Egyptians will cast their votes in the 2024 Presidential Elections on 10-12 December 2023 locally, while eligible voters living abroad will vote on 1-3 December.
Be Social
Comments
Leave a Comment