The Muslim Brotherhood has settled on a presidential candidate who it says is a well-known public figure to support in Egypt’s upcoming presidential election.
Mahmoud Ghozlan, the group’s office spokesperson, told state-run Al-Ahram on Tuesday that the candidate the group will back meets all the criteria it had already established. He said the group will help its chosen candidate get the required approval of 30 MPs, after coordinating with their respective political parties.
The Brotherhood's powerful Freedom and Justice Party controls more than 40 percent of the seats of the upper and lower houses of Parliament combined.
According to the Presidential Elections Law, a non-partisan candidate must gather notarized signatures from 30,000 citizens from 15 provinces or get the support of 30 MPs to be able to run for president. The election is scheduled to be held on 23 and 24 May.
Ghozlan told Al-Ahram that the Brotherhood will not be alone in supporting its candidate, and predicted that other political forces would back him. He said the group’s potential candidate was selected based on moral and patriotic standards sufficient for him to draw support from several parties.
Ghozlan also said the Brotherhood had recently approached a number of public figures about running for president, but many declined for personal reasons.
Commentators say the Brotherhood will back Mansour Hassan, the head of the Advisory Council to Egypt's military rulers and a culture and information minister under late President Anwar Sadat.
In January, FJP denied reports that it had chosen Hassan as its preferred presidential candidate. The group said it was not likely to reveal who the party would support for some time.
On Monday, state-run Al-Akhbar newspaper quoted Younis Makhyoun, a senior member of the Salafi-oriented Nour Party, as saying his party and the FJP would likely coordinate in choosing a candidate to support in the election.
A day earlier, Al-Masry Al-Youm quoted senior Brotherhood official Hassan al-Beshbeeshy as saying the Brotherhood and Salafis are 90 percent sure they will support Hossam al-Gheriany, head of the Supreme Judicial Council, for president.
Other prominent contenders for president include former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, former Brotherhood leader Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq.
