LONDON: The Wafd Party’s higher commission voted on Saturday not to nominate party chairman El-Sayed El-Badawi as a candidate in Egypt’s presidential elections in March.
In a secret ballot 42 of the party’s 45-member commission voted against El-Badawi’s nomination, local media reported. The announcement followed a five-hour meeting in closed session at the party’s Cairo headquarters.
Earlier this week — and two days after the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi submitted his candidacy papers to the National Election Authority — El-Badawi had announced plans to run for election.
At that stage already all the candidates who had previously announced their intention to run, except for the president, had withdrawn their candidacy.
Meanwhile, a leading member of an opposition campaign that had been challenging El-Sisi in the upcoming elections, was attacked outside his home on Saturday in what his lawyer described as a failed kidnap attempt.
Hisham Genena, a former anti-corruption watchdog chief, had been working to elect former military chief-of-staff Lt. Gen. Sami Anan, the last challenger seen as a potential threat to the re-election of Sissi.
Anan’s campaign came to an abrupt halt when he was arrested this week and accused of running for office without military permission.
Wafd Party votes against backing chairman against Sisi in Egypt’s presidential elections
Wafd Party votes against backing chairman against Sisi in Egypt’s presidential elections
Iran’s foreign minister heads to Muscat for nuclear talks with US
- Iran will engage in the talks “with authority and with the aim of reaching a fair, mutually acceptable and dignified understanding on the nuclear issue,” a spokesperson said
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has departed for the Omani capital Muscat at the head of a diplomatic delegation for nuclear talks with the US due to be held on Friday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson said.
The US and Iran have agreed to hold talks in Oman on Friday, officials for both sides said, even as they remain at odds over Washington’s insistence that negotiations must include Tehran’s missile arsenal and Iran’s vow to discuss only its nuclear program.
Iran will engage in the talks “with authority and with the aim of reaching a fair, mutually acceptable and dignified understanding on the nuclear issue,” the spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Thursday.
“We hope the American side will also participate in this process with responsibility, realism and seriousness,” Baghaei added.
