The Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission has upheld the decision to bar 10 candidates from Egypt’s upcoming presidential elections.

The candidates include ex-spy chief Omar Suleiman, Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat al-Shater, and the ultraconservative Salafist, Hazem Abu Ismail.

The commission said the candidates were excluded from the polls that are scheduled to be held on 23 and 24 May due to “legal irregularities”.

Suleiman was barred because he did not collect the 30,000 endorsements from 15 different directorates in Egypt but obtained them from several cities only. El-Shater’s ban was upheld because he has spent time in prison in the mid-1990s.

In February, Islamist parties secured 83 per cent of the seats on offer in elections for representatives to sit in the Shura Council, the Egyptian parliament’s upper house.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom & Justice Party (FJP) received 28 per cent of the votes and will take 105 of the 180 seats on offer in the Shura Council. The Salafist’s Al-Nour Party received a further 25 per cent of the seats. Meanwhile, the liberal Al-Wafd trailed in third with just 14 seats.