Disqualifications

In the continued, err, excitement of the Egyptian presidential election campaign, all three candidates I've commented on have been disqualified:

"The Egyptian election authorities eliminated three of the country’s leading presidential candidates in one broad stroke on Saturday night in an unexpected decision that once again threw into disarray the contest to shape the future of Egypt after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

"The High Election Commission struck down 10 candidates in all, including the three who have generated the most passion in this polarized nation: Khairat el-Shater, the leading strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist; and Omar Suleiman, Mr. Mubarak’s former vice president and intelligence chief...

"Mr. Abu Ismail’s disqualification had been expected; a passport and voter registration had emerged proving that his mother had been an American citizen, which disqualifies him from the presidency under current Egyptian law.

"Mr. Shater was ruled ineligible because of a past criminal conviction, even though the charges were widely viewed as trumped up by the Mubarak government to punish him for his role as a leader of the Islamist opposition.

"Election authorities said Mr. Suleiman had failed to meet the signature requirement to qualify for the ballot. Of the 30,000 notarized statements he submitted last weekend, most were said to lack adequate authentication or failed to meet geographic distribution requirements, they said."

This supports my most recent theory that there is no conspiracy in Egyptian politics, only chaos.