Egypt's election committee has confirmed that Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister would run in a presidential election, reversing its decision to eject him over a law drawn up by Islamists.
Ahmed Shafiq was the last prime minister under president Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown by a popular uprising early last year.
A total of 13 contenders have been cleared to run for the post.
"After listening to Shafiq's appeal, the committee decided to halt the decision to exclude him from the presidential race," Farouk Soltan, the head of the election committee, said while announcing the final list of candidates on Thursday in Cairo.
Shafiq was disqualified on Tuesday, after the military council approved a new law denying political rights to anyone who served as president, vice-president or prime minister in the decade prior to Mubarak's fall.
The electoral committee also decided to refer the new law to the Supreme Constitutional Court to determine whether it was constitutional or not.
The commission is due to announce the final list of candidates on Thursday.
Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's former vice-president and spy chief, has also been disqualified for different reasons, along with Khairat al-Shater of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist Hazem Abu Ismail.
The front-runners among those left in the race are considered to be Amr Moussa, former foreign minister; Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, an independent moderate; and Mohammed Mursi, chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).
Presidential elections are set for May 23 and 24 with a run-off scheduled in June.
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