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Egypt's first presidential elections since Hosni Mubarak's ouster will be held on May 23, head of the Supreme Committee for Elections Farouk Sultan said in a press conference last week.

A first round of voting will take place on May 23 and 24 and a runoff in case no candidate garners more than 50 percent of the vote is scheduled for June 16 and 17. The committee will declare a winner on June 21.

Egyptians living abroad will be allowed to vote at embassies and consulates from May 11 to 17, and from June 3 to 9 in case of a runoff.

Sultan, who is also Chairman of the Supreme Constitutional Court, said the committee would start accepting candidate applications from March 10 until April 8.

The final list of candidates will be announced on April 26 and they will have between April 30 and May 20 to campaigns for votes. However, it remains to be seen how far the next president's powers will extend.

Egypt is yet to adopt a new constitution defining whether it is a presidential, semi-presidential, or parliamentary republic.

Both houses of the recently elected parliament were scheduled to meet on March 3 and appoint a 100-member assembly tasked with drafting the new constitution. It is unclear whether the assembly will be able, or even intends to, finish drafting the constitution before the elections are held.

Some of the prominent potential candidates who announced their intention of running include former Secretary General of the Arab League and Mubarak's foreign minister for 10 years Amre Moussa, Mubarak's last prime minister and Civil Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafik, a former military man, former Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Council member Abdel Moniem Aboul Fetouh, Islamist thinker Mohamed Salim Al-Awa, and Salafi lawyer and television show host Hazem Salah Abu Ismail.

Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had announced his intention to run after Mubarak's ouster but pulled out of the race last January, saying any presidential election held under military rule and before a new constitution outlining the president's powers is adopted is illegitimate.

The Supreme Council of Armed Forces, the military council running Egypt since Mubarak's ouster on February 11 of last year, promised to hand over power to a civilian government on June 30, 2012. Their pledge came after a week of bloody clashes between security officials and anti-military protesters calling for SCAF's removal last November.

SCAF had initially promised to hand over power six months after Mubarak's ouster. However, they later issued a constitutional decree saying a March 19 referendum which passed with a 77 percent vote empowered them to run the country until a president was elected.