Cairo: The last prime minister of Egypt's deposed president Hosni Mubarak Wednesday faced the prospect of disqualification from the presidential race after a court revoked a decision by a state election commission to reinstate him.
Ahmad Shafiq, 71, was last month allowed back in the race just two days after he was excluded under a controversial law passed by the Islamist-led parliament stripping top Mubarak-era figures of political rights.
But the Administrative Justice Court said late Tuesday that the commission, overseeing the May 23-24 elections, exceeded its authority by referring the law to the Supreme Constitutional Court to examine its legality.
The commission's head Farouq Sultan earlier said Shafiq had been reinstated after he appealed against disqualification. He added that the panel had accepted Shafiq's appeal lest the Supreme Constitutional Court should decide against the legality of the ban on the Mubarak-era officials.
Lawmaker Essam Sultan, the author of the ban, said Wednesday the latest court ruling ncessitates that Shafiq be barred.
"The Supreme Election Commission should promptly order Shafiq's exclusion in compliance with the ban on the Mubarak officials," said Sultan on his Facebook page. "We will continue our campaign to purge the country of the corruption symbols," he added.
However, Shafiq's lawyer Shawqi al-Sayed played down the significance of the court ruling, the latest twist in a fast-changing political landscape in Egypt ahead of the elections, the first since Mubarak's overthrow in February last year.
"The court ruling is only pertaining to the commission's referral of the ban to the Supreme Constitutional Court," said Shawki. "The ruling did not explicitly refer to the decision of the commission to reinstate Shafiq. The commission's decisions cannot be appealed," he argued.
There was no immediate comment from the election commission, who had suspended its work on Monday in a row with the parliament.
Should Shafiq be eventually barred, his exclusion would strengthen the hand of Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister, and a frontrunner supported by secular-minded voters. Moussa, who led the Arab League for a decade, is locked in a tight race for Egypt's top post against Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, a moderate Islamist, and Mohammed Mursi, the head of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.
The parliament last month passed an amended bill stripping former officials, who served as president, vice president and prime minister in the last 10 years in the era of Mubarak. The law also strips the former officials of other political rights, including the right to vote and stand in other elections.
The ban also applies to senior officials in Mubarak's now-disbanded ruling party. The bill was drafted in a direct response to a short-lived presidential bid announced by Mubarak's vice president and former intelligence chief Omar Sulaiman.
The election commission later disqualified Sulaiman, along with nine other hopefuls, for failing to meet the legal criteria to compete in the polls.
