CAIRO - The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) will announce its candidate for the 2011 presidential elections next may, according to a senior official.
"The party's candidate for the presidency will not be declared until next May or June. That is because President Hosni Mubarak is still the head of the party and the state," said Safieddin Kharboush, the head of the governmental National Youth Council on Sunday.
Kharboush added that Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Mubarak, had not been put forward as a candidate.
"The candidate's name will not be a secret," Kharboush said. Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981, has yet to say if he will seek a sixth term.
Meanwhile, Moufid Shehab, Egypt's Minister of Legal Affairs and Parliamentary Councils, said that Egyptian expatriates would have the right to cast their vote in the upcoming presidential elections through the country's embassies and consulates around the world.
Shehab, however, ruled out the possibility of Egyptian expatriates casting their votes in the upcoming parliamentary elections next November, “due to the difficulty of counting all of the Egyptians living abroad”.
The People's Assembly (the Lower House of the Egyptian Parliament) passed a major constitutional amendment in May 2005, which allows more than one candidate to run in the presidential elections for the first time in the country.
Under the amendment, leaders of legally registered political parties could run in presidential elections, but independent candidates must get the backing of at least 250 elected members of parliament and local councils, which are dominated by the ruling party.
