Egypt's first presidential election since President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown last year will be held the first week of June, an official from the judicial committee supervising the vote said.
Army leaders who took over for Mubarak in February last year have faced street protests and widespread demands that they hand power to civilians sooner than the end-June deadline they had set themselves.
“Presidential elections will begin in the first week of June, and the president will be sworn in by the end of June,” committee member Ahmed Shams Eddin told Reuters.
“Any runoffs will take place within the month of June, and by July we will have an Egyptian president,” he said.
Similar reports about the timing were published in state-run newspapers on Sunday. The judicial committee is due to hold a news conference later on Sunday to announce the official timetable.
Officials said this month that nominations for the race will be accepted starting 10 March, suggesting the generals may have accelerated their planned handover of power. Some politicians had pushed for a vote in May or earlier.
Under new rules approved in a referendum last year, presidents will be limited to two consecutive four-year terms.
Mubarak was ousted shortly before the end of his fifth six-year term. Most of his terms were secured via single-candidate referendums. In 2005, he ran in the nation’s first multi-candidate race, but rights groups and others said the rules for that race blocked any realistic challenge to the incumbent.
