JURIST - Paper Chase: Egypt to host run-off election between top 2 presidential candidates

[JURIST] The Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) of Egypt announced presidential election [IFES backgrounder] results on Monday and declared that there will be a run-off election between the top two candidates later in June. The run-off will be between Muslim Brotherhood [party website] candidate Mohamed Morsi and former Hosni Mubarak [Al Jazeera profile; JURIST news archive] Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik. The SPEC reported the margin between the two was only 250,000 votes [Ahram Online report]. The next three highest scoring candidates filed appeals with the SPEC to challenge the results, but were rejected [Ahram Online report]. Protests began immediately after the announcement, with opponents of the two remaining candidates alleging that they had fixed the election [Ahram Online report]. The run-off election will be held on June 16 and 17.

Egypt's ruling army in April approved a law [JURIST report] drafted by the Egyptian Parliament [official website] which banned certain candidates from the presidential elections. The law was passed early in April [JURIST report] and prevented anyone who held a rank of party leader or higher during the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak from running for president for 10 years. The law was not passed in time to block the candidacy of Ahmed Shafik, who very briefly served as Mubarak's prime minister and for a short period following his rule. Earlier that month, the Egyptian Constitutional Court [official website, Arabic] announced [JURIST report] that it could not rule on the constitutionality of the law until after it has taken effect.