EYGPT: Egyptian authorities yesterday rejected a request from President Hosni Mubarak's most prominent rival for a rerun of presidential elections.
With Mr Mubarak reported to have taken more than 70 per cent of the vote, Ayman Nour of the liberal Ghad (Tomorrow) Party had told the presidential election commission that widespread abuses undermined the credibility of voting on Wednesday. But a spokesman for the commission, whose decisions are final and immune from any court rulings, said it found that all of Mr Nour's complaints were baseless.
"The commission checked the request and ended up rejecting the request," spokesman Osama Atawia told a news conference.
"The commission concluded that the facts referred to in the request were untrue," he said, adding that names and numbers of polling stations were inaccurate.
Mr Atawia said he could not give a time for announcing the result of the elections, the first ever in Egypt with more than one presidential candidate. Mr Mubarak (77), in power since 1981, is ahead in the count, as had been expected, with about 72 per cent of the votes cast, said a source in the commission.
The source, who asked not to be named, gave no turnout figure. But in Alexandria, Egypt's second city, the number of ballots cast was 17 per cent of the voters registered and Mr Mubarak was the winner, another source said.
In the eastern town of Ismailia, the turnout was 24 per cent, with Mr Mubarak taking between 83 and 87 per cent in various voting districts, an election official said.
Mr Nour, a 40-year-old lawyer and member of parliament, is the best known of the nine party leaders who tried to stop Mr Mubarak winning a fifth six-year term.
Mr Nour's campaign manager Wael Nawara, reacting to the rejection of the request, said: "We are surprised the committee has simply dismissed these complaints despite the coverage from the media and the repetitive nature of these complaints."
Similar abuses were repeated across the country and not simply in one area, he said.
Mr Mubarak's campaign spokesman, Mohamed Kamal, said Mr Nour was attacking the process because he was going to lose.
Some observers say the elections have enlivened debate and were an improvement on Egyptian parliamentary elections, while others said many of the same abuses recurred.
Monitoring groups reported irregularities including ballot stuffing, vote buying, intimidation, abuse of government vehicles and discrimination in favour of Mr Mubarak.