CAIRO - President Hosni Mubarak Sunday called on governors to help ease the voting process in the upcoming legislative elections, and urged them to take "all necessary steps" to guarantee fair and free elections.
Mubarak instructed governors to coordinate their efforts with the Government, preparing for parliamentary elections expected to be held next month with the aim of broadening the public's participation in the voting process, read a statement issued after Mubarak's meeting with the Council of Governors Sunday.
The statement, carried by the official Middle East News Agency (MENA), quoted Mubarak as telling the governors to highlight the concept of citizenship.
Muslim-Coptic tensions have mounted ini Egypt over recent weeks over convers and media remarks made by clergymen for both sides.
Egypt's parliamentary elections will be held in the last week of November and the re-run in the first week of December. However, no specific date has been set yet. Mubarak is expected to issue a decree concerning the date within a few days.
"Governors and the executive authority are entitled to confront any bid intending to jeopardise Egypt's national unity between Muslims and Copts," Mubarak was quoted as telling the governors at the three-hour meeting.
Mubarak also discussed priorities of the current stage with the governors, instructing them to follow his presidential programme, according to MENA.
Raising the growth rates and helping create job opportunities as well as broadening the base of social justice are the top priorities at this stage, the statement added.
The meeting also focused on investment issues, decentralisation, amending the law of local administration, developing the infrastructure and fighting poverty.
Mubarak's electoral programme, which was launched during Egypt's first competitive presidential elections in 2005, aimed at providing jobs for 600,000 young people in micro-scale projects with a total capital of LE3 billion, enhancing social security and applying decentralisation.
