[JURIST] Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak [official website, in English; BBC profile] said Sunday he was optimistic that a proposed amendment to the Egyptian constitution [text] to permit multi-candidate direct elections for the Egyptian presidency will pass when the Egyptian parliament [official website] begins its next session on November 8. The proposed amendment [draft text, in Arabic; Al-Ahram report] to Article 76, which was approved by referendum [JURIST report] in May 2005, allows an opposition candidate to run in the national elections if that candidate's sponsoring party controls five percent of parliament.

Mubarak has won three elections since assuming power in 1981 - the last [JURIST report] in September last year - and has kept Egypt [JURIST news archive] under emergency law [JURIST report] throughout his presidency, giving the government a type of quasi-military control over the population. AFP has more.