Egypt will hold its first parliamentary election since the fall of president Hosni Mubarak in September and the decades-long state of emergency will be lifted for the polls, the country's military rulers said on Monday. But no date has yet been decided for a presidential vote, said General Mamduh Shahin of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took power after 18 days of nation-wide protests forced Mubarak to quit.
"The legislative elections will be held in September," he told reporters. "We must hold legislative elections and when that is done we will announce the date for the presidential polls," Shahin said. The military council stepped in to fill the political vacuum in Egypt when Mubarak quit on February 11 after three decades of autocratic rule. The state of emergency was imposed after the 1981 assassination of Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat by Islamist gunmen at a military parade and was never lifted.