At least 500 to run for Egyptian presidency
| CAIRO
At least 500 Egyptians have taken the first step to run for聽president, a sign of the excitement generated by the country's first聽presidential聽elections in which the outcome is in doubt, election officials said on Wednesday.
They said the 500 have obtained applications to officially declare their candidacy for the vote, which follows last year's ouster of longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.
Beside known聽presidential聽hopefuls who have been seriously campaigning, the applicants included a wide range of obscure Egyptians in different professions like journalists, judges, lawyers and school teachers, they said.
The election is scheduled for May 23-24. Independent applicants must secure the endorsement of 30 lawmakers or 30,000 people in at least 15 of聽Egypt's聽18 provinces in order to run. Applicants from political parties with at least one member in parliament are exempt from these endorsements.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The office of the聽president聽in聽Egypt聽has powers far exceeding any other branch of government, with Mubarak, for example, running the country with unquestioned authority for 29 years until his ouster by a popular uprising 13 months ago.
The generals who took over power after his ouster function as a collective聽presidency, again with far-reaching powers.
Islamists who have dominated elections for parliament's two chambers would like to curtail the powers of thepresident's聽office and give more authority to the legislature.
Presidents聽in聽Egypt聽have since the overthrow of the monarchy nearly 60 years ago secured the land's highest office through heavily rigged referendums in which no other names but theirs appeared on ballot papers.
The only exception came in 2005, when Mubarak allowed other candidates to run against him. He won that vote comfortably, but later jailed the politician who finished a distant second on drummed-up forgery charges.
The聽presidential聽election will be the last stop in聽Egypt's聽turbulent transition to civilian rule. The generals, led by Mubarak's defense minister of 20 years Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, have promised to hand over power shortly after a new聽president聽is announced on June 21.
But many in聽Egypt聽suspect that the generals are working behind the scenes to ensure that the next聽presidentis either beholden to them or not strong enough to challenge their decades-old immunity from civilian oversight.
