Egypt’s Journalists' Syndicate has postponed its midterm elections to 19 March after the general assembly failed on Friday to meet the necessary quorum to hold the vote over the president and six board seats.

Only 157 journalists out of 8,861 eligible voting members registered attendance earlier on Friday for the general assembly.

The quorum for holding the syndicate's elections is 50 percent plus one member of the general assembly. The quorum for a repeat general assembly is 25 percent plus one member.

Members vote in the midterm elections - held every two years - for half of the board seats (six out of 12) in addition to a new head.

Six candidates are vying for the post of syndicate head, which is currently held by Diaa Rashwan, while 55 candidates are competing for board seats.

The planned elections have been sparking debates in the past few weeks, facing several lawsuits calling for the suspension of the elections over coronavirus concerns among other allegations.

One of the lawsuits called for suspending the election over a fear of the coronavirus outbreak, while another was filed by a journalist who accused the committee, supervising the election, of violating bylaws in rejecting his candidacy for a syndicate post.

However, Egypt’s state council rejected earlier this week the two lawsuits that sought to stop the elections from being held on 5 March as scheduled.