CAIRO: Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court is to sit just two days before a presidential election runoff to review the legality of a law that had threatened to bar one of the two remaining candidates, a spokesman said yesterday.
"The court has scheduled June 14 as the date for its hearing on the appeal lodged by the electoral commission concerning the law," court spokesman Maher Sami told the state MENA news agency.
Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, is due to square off in the runoff on June 16-17 against the frontrunner from the first round, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi.
The former premier was initially disqualified from standing in the election in accordance with a law passed by the Islamist-dominated parliament in April barring top Mubarak-era officials from running for public office.
But in late April the electoral commission accepted an appeal from Shafiq against his disqualification and the case was referred to the court.
Three of the losing candidates from the first round joined forces with youth groups on Monday to demand the suspension of the runoff until the implementation of the so-called political isolation law.
Leftist Hamdeen Sabbahi and moderate Islamist Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, who came third and fourth respectively, inked the statement along with fellow candidate Khaled Ali.
Shafiq is reviled by the youth activists who were the driving force in the uprising that toppled Mubarak in February last year. Last week, unknown attackers set fire to his Cairo campaign headquarters.
In the first round, the Brotherhod's Mursi won 24.77 percent of the vote, slightly ahead of Shafiq's 23.66 percent. Sabbahi came third with 20.71 percent, ahead of Abul Fotouh with 17.47 percent. Ali trailed behind.
Meanwhile, dozens of protesters remained in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square yesterday after camping out following a mass demonstration against verdicts handed down in Mubarak's murder trial.
Fresh protests were expected in both Cairo and the port city of Alexandria later in the day, to mark the second anniversary of the killing of Khaled Said, a young Egyptian beaten to death in police custody in 2010.
Said became the symbol of police repression and of the uprising that overthrew Mubarak in February last year.
Traffic had yet to return to the streets around Tahrir in the heart of the capital, an AFP photographer reported.
Dozens of protesters were still in the square, having spent the night in tents.
On Tuesday, thousands of marchers poured into the square, in condemnation of the verdicts handed down in Mubarak's trial.
Mubarak and his minister of interior Habib Al-Adly were sentenced to life in prison on Saturday, but six security chiefs were acquitted of the killings of demonstrators during last year's uprising that left some 850 people dead.
Calls to prot
est on the anniversary of Said's death were made online. A silent march was expected to take place in Cairo, while a symbolic "funeral march" was planned to kick off from Said's home in Alexandria.
Said, 28, was detained in an Alexandria internet cafe and then beaten to death. His killing angered youth activists, some of who set up the "We are all Khaled Said" Facebook page in his memory.
The page now has two million members, and was one of the first to call for protests against Mubarak's regime on January 25 last year.
FROM: AGENCIES
Court date casts shadow over Egypt poll runoff
