By MATT BRADLEY
The commission's decision removes the three top contenders in the race—Muslim Brotherhood chief strategist Khairat al-Shate, left; Hazem Abu Ismail, a lawyer-turned-hardline preacher, center; and Mubarak-era strongman Omar Suleiman.
CAIRO—Egypt's presidential election commission rejected appeals from 10 hopefuls, including the three most promising and polarizing candidates, barring them from the race in a decision that threatens a shaky transition to democracy as the planned hand-over of power to a civilian leadership nears.
Khairat al-Shater, the Muslim Brotherhood's lead financier and strategist, Omar Suleiman, a former spy chief under Egypt's ousted regime, and Hazem Abu Ismail, a firebrand Islamist preacher, will no longer be eligible to compete in the elections, which are set to begin on May 23.
The decisions of the panel of five judges, who were picked by Egypt's interim military rulers, are final, and follow a decision to disqualify the 10 candidates last week.
The disqualification of the most popular candidates has effectively eroded what little trust Egyptians held in the public institutions that will play a crucial role in guiding the Arab world's largest nation toward democracy and dealing with an impending economic crisis.
Previously
- Egypt Presidential Candidates Appeal Their Exclusion April 15, 2012
- Egypt Bars 10 From Presidential Race April 14, 2012
- Islamists Oppose Egypt Candidates April 13, 2012
- Candidate Jostling in Egypt Tests Vote April 8, 2012
- Shuffle of Candidates Shakes Up Egypt PollApril 6, 2012
- Egypt's Brotherhood Vies for PresidencyMarch 31, 2012
The top three candidates who were finally excluded on Tuesday enjoy a street-level popularity unrivaled by any of the 13 contenders left in the race. Mr. Abu Ismail called on his legions of supporters on Tuesday night to conduct a sit-in in front of the election commission headquarters outside Cairo.
On Friday, supporters for Mr. Abu Ismail and the deep ranks of Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood have promised to fill Cairo's Tahrir Square to protest.
The election commission gave no explanation for its decision on Tuesday evening, but leaks from the commission were published in the local press early this week as the candidates prepared their appeals.
Mr. Abu Ismail was excluded from the race because his mother adopted U.S. citizenship before she died.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Egyptian military police stand by Tuesday as a protester holding a placard in support of Salafist presidential candidate Hazem Abu Ismail (portrait) takes part in a demonstration outside the building of the High Presidential Election Committee in Cairo.
Mr. Shater was excluded because of a 2006 conviction for money laundering and for supposedly helping to organize a militia demonstration by Brotherhood students.
Mr. Suleiman, a former spy chief and confidant of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, isn't eligible to run because his campaign didn't gather enough signatures to support his nomination.
"It's completely crazy. It's completely illogical" said Mourad Mohamed Ali, Mr. Shater's campaign manager. "It's a political decision that reflects that Mubarak is still ruling the country."
The exclusion of the top three candidates does little to change the broad contours of Egypt's presidential race. The axis of political debate in the coming elections still lies between Islamists and political figures who are seen as aligned with the former regime.
Former Brotherhood leader Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and the Brotherhood's backup candidate Momamed Morsi now step into the forefront in a race against former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister appointed by Mr. Mubarak.
The decision comes just as public trust in Egypt's public institutions and its road map toward civilian rule had already reached its nadir.
In a meeting with the heads of political parties early this week, the head of the interim ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, or SCAF, urged politicians to form a new constituent assembly for drafting Egypt's new constitution without the participation of members of parliament. The head of the SCAF, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, also requested that the constitution be finished before presidential elections in May, according to some people who attended the meeting.
The SCAF's interference in the constitutional drafting process was met with howls of protest by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose political party holds a dominant plurality in the legislature.
Some Brotherhood political leaders speculated openly this week that the SCAF hoped to reshape the 100-member constituent assembly in order to delay the transition to civilian rule and to engineer the constitution so as to protect the military's expansive political and economic privileges.
Military leaders said on Tuesday that their new timeline wouldn't delay the elections or the hand-over of power.
Write to Matt Bradley at matt.bradley@dowjones.com
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