Egypt candidate to seek election suspension-lawyer

Leftist candidate Hamdeen Sabahy will file an appeal for Egypt's presidential election to be suspended because of alleged voting irregularities and a pending case over the right of former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq to stand, Sabahy's lawyer said on Saturday.
   
"We will present an appeal on behalf of candidate Hamdeen Sabahy ... to the presidential electoral committee, citing a series of irregularities ... that have affected the outcome of the first round," Essam El-Islamboly told Reuters.

It was earlier reported that Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq paid tribute to the "glorious revolution" that toppled Hosni Mubarak on Saturday, a dramatic turn-around for the former regime official who fought his way into the runoff elections by appealing to public disenchantment with last year's uprising.              

Shafiq, the last prime minister to serve under Mubarak, vowed there would be no "recreation of the old regime" as he prepared to face off against Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in a runoff on June 16-17.                    

Addressing a news conference, Shafiq appeared to be trying to cast off his image as an anti-revolution candidate who spoke disparagingly about the youth groups that engineered the anti-Mubarak uprising, reaching out to all segments of society in a bid to rally voters who favored his rivals during the first-round.

AP/REUTERS