Cairo: Mortada Mansour, chairman of Egypt’s leading Zamalek sporting club, on Saturday said he was dropping plans to run for president, two weeks after throwing his hat into the ring.
“My decision to withdraw comes in response to a request from the club’s board members who want me to devote myself to managing the club,” Mansour said at a press conference in Cairo.
The 61-year-old lawyer also declared his “full” backing for former defence minister Abdul Fattah Al Sissi’s candidacy.
Mansour used the conference to lash out at Al Sissi’s main challenger in the race, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi.
Mansour, known for public outbursts of anger, accused Sabahi of paying voters to endorse him. Any aspiring candidate has to be endorsed by voters to file nomination papers announcing his intention to run for the office of president.
“Sabahi has paid money to get endorsements from citizens. I have [the] proof and witnesses,” Mansour added. “He is being supported by [Qatari TV] Al Jazeera and the [Muslim Brotherhood].”
Sabahi, who came third in the 2012 presidential polls, on Saturday presented 31,000 endorsements, 6,000 higher than the required voter signatures, to a judicial commission in charge of the May 26-27 elections. Sabahi did not comment on Mansour’s allegations.
Al Sissi is widely tipped to win. He has been popular with many Egyptians since July last year when he led the army’s toppling of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mansour was a member of parliament in the era of former president Hosni Mubarak, whom he firmly supported.
Months after Mubarak was forced to step down, Mansour was charged along with 24 others of orchestrating an attack against Mubarak’s opponents, who were camping in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the final days of the uprising against the long-standing president.
All defendants, including Mansour, were later acquitted in the case, dubbed in the local media the ‘Camel Battle’ as horses and camels were used in assaulting the campers.
