Egypt's parliamentary elections to start registration on March 9: election commission

"The registration of candidates will go on for eight days from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. except for the last day as it will be extended to 5 p.m.," said the chairman.

Abu al-Maaty added that each stage of the elections, which will kick off on April 22, will be held on two successive days and that they will all be held under complete judicial supervision.

The chairman said that the maximum amount of money to be spent on electoral campaign is 1 million Egyptian pounds (about 148,000 U.S. dollars), stressing that a candidate would be disqualified if violating any regulating rules.

The regulating rules include banning propaganda that misleads voters and banning the use of speakers and microphones for electoral publicity, Abu al-Maaty said.

The chairman added that over 90,000 local and foreign observers were approved to monitor the upcoming elections, revealing that the commission agreed to invite the European Union, the African Union, the Arab League and other Arab and international institutions to participate in monitoring the elections.

"The commission examined all the requests for monitoring the elections and the result was the approval of 50 local organizations and four international ones to follow up the course of electoral process," Abu al-Maaty said.

The chairman told reporters that the Administrative Court will be the assigned authority to settle any relevant disputes between candidates.

With regards to the presidency-sponsored national dialogue on parliamentary elections, whose first session started Tuesday, Abu al-Maaty said that the election commission had not yet received any recommendations from the participant parties about guarantees for the integrity of the upcoming elections.

Source: xinhuanet.com