Parliament candidacy of Mubarak-era tycoon Ezz accepted despite court ban

Source: 
Ahram online
Publication date: 
Sep 10 2015

Egypt's High Elections Committee (HEC) accepted on Thursday the application of steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz to stand as a nominated candidate in the upcoming parliamentary elections despite a court order that was due to disqualify him from the race. 

 

The application was presented by Ezz’s solicitor Mohamed Hamouda to the HEC in Shebin El-Kom in the Nile Delta governorate of Menoufiya

Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court upheld a ruling on Tuesday to disqualify Ezz from running in the parliamentary elections.

However, Hamouda said the ruling was relevant only to Ezz’s potential nomination for elections planned for March 2015, which were postponed.

Ezz also recently opened an account with the national post office to store funds in. The account cannot be seized or confiscated by the state. This comes after a Cairo criminal court in August 2015 ordered the seizure of his funds and prohibited him from opening any new bank accounts.

Ezz, who was released from jail in August 2014 after facing corruption charges, served as the national organiser of former president Hosni Mubarak’s now-dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP). He also acted as NDP spokesperson in parliament between 2005 and 2010.

His decision to run in the upcoming parliamentary elections drew criticism from numerous pro-25 January Revolution political figures and parties, as the 56-year-old is widely believed to have engineered widespread fraud during the 2010 parliamentary elections, securing an unprecedented majority for his party in the chamber.

Ezz is chairman of Ezz Steel and has a 55 percent stake in EZDK, the largest steel complex in the Middle East. The company was previously known as the Alexandria National Iron and Steel Company before Ezz, who was then a mid-level steel manufacturer, was called in to bail out the struggling publicly-owned company in 1999.

He enjoyed a close relationship with Gamal Mubarak, the former president's son, who was reportedly being groomed to succeed his father as president.

Egypt's parliamentary elections will begin in October and end in December.

 

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/140155/Egypt/Politics-/Parl...