After mass death sentences for the Muslim Brotherhood supporters, an Egyptian court now is targeting Hosni Mubarak's obsolete National Democratic Party members. A Cairo court passed an order Tuesday, preventing NDP officials from contesting in the upcoming elections.
The judges at the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters stated that the NDP passed laws that breached the constitution and ignored court rulings and will not be allowed to enter the presidential, parliamentary or local city council elections. Arguing that the party was dissolved by a 2011 court ruling after Mubarak was overthrown, the judges said NDP's political comeback will pose a threat to the country and upset the citizens.
The ban comes as Egypt gears up for the presidential elections later this month. The ban will be imposed until a higher tribunal overrules it. Egypt's constitution does not ban anyone from running for elections, the Associated Press reports.
But, in 2012 a constitution committee voted in favor of adding a constitutional article prohibiting citizens who were members of the NDP in the last 10 years of Mubarak's rule from standing in elections, states ahramonline.
Magdi El-Agat, committee member, who was also the judge that ordered the disbanding of the NDP in 2011, opined that banning citizens of their political rights must be set up through judicial order rather than by national agreement.
Even the members of Brotherhood, which was declared a terrorist organisation, were banned from contesting in the elections, according to the Alexandria Court for Urgent Matters ruling.
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate, Abdel-Fattah al Sisi, said in a televised interview that the Muslim Brotherhood "will no longer exist."
"The (Brotherhood's) problem is not with me," said Sisi, who was in the forefront in ousting Mohamed Morsi, senior Brotherhood official and Egypt's first elected president. "It is with the Egyptian people. You Egyptians finished them."
