Hamdeen Sabahi's presidential campaign coordinator Hossam Moenes speaking at a press conference on Thursday (Photo courtesy of the Hamdeen Sabahi campaign's official Facebook page)
The campaign of presidential hopeful Hamdeen Sabahi announced at a press conference Thursday the number of recommendations it succeeded in collecting in support of Sabahi's bid for Egypt's presidency.
Hossam Moenes, coordinator of Sabahi's electoral campaign, said the team had managed to gather 31,100 notorised recommendation forms from 17 governorates.
Egypt's elections law requires a minimum of 25,000 recommendation forms, with at least 1,000 from 15 governorates.
The announcement means that leftist politician Sabahi will become the second candidate to have fulfilled the requirements to run in the vote, slated to take place 26-27 May.
"We thank everyone who submitted a recommendation form and faced difficulties and harassment while doing so," campaign member Ahmed Sharaf said.
Sabahi's campaign had said earlier that some of its members were harassed by security forces while gathering recommendations or campaigning.
On Wednesday, the campaign of former military chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi announced that it had gathered far more than the required number of forms, with over 500,000 recommendations, according to campaign legal advisor Mohamed Abou Shuqqa.
El-Sisi, who first rose to popularity after leading the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, is expected to win the presidential polls by a landslide.
Sabahi's supporters have complained of harassment and bias in favour of El-Sisi while campaigning across the country.
Moenes's announcement comes a day after one of Egypt's most prominent liberal parties, the Constitution Party, said that it would support Sabahi in the elections.
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