Cairo: A court has suspended Egypt's presidential elections due to be held later this month, citing a procedural lapse in arranging for the vote, according to legal sources.
The Administrative Court Justice in the city of Benha, some 50 kilometres north of Cairo, said that an official commission, overseeing the May 23-24 polls, had exceeded its authority by inviting the voters to cast their ballots, added the sources.
"The ruling results in suspending the scheduled elections because (the country's military ruler) Field Marshal Hussain Tantawi, not the commission, should have been the one who issued the decree for voting," said Ahmed Ghoneim, a member of the three-judge court panel that gave the verdict.
He added that the ruling, although it can be appealed, is binding. There was no immediate comment from the election commission or the military, who has been ruling Egypt since Hosni Mubarak was removed from power more than a year ago.
The ruling is set to fuel political turmoil in the run-up to the elections, Egypt's first since Mubarak's overthrow.
