Waiting for the funeral

By Nadia Abou Al-Magd

The dissension first came to the surface with an exchange of punches between Ragab Hilal Hemeida, an elected member of parliament, and Mohamed Farid Zakariya, an appointed member of the Shura Council. This was followed by a war of words and an exchange of accusations and counter-accusations between the two men.

After Murad's death, Zakariya, 49, was declared interim party chairman by his supporters, while Hemeida's faction elected El-Hamza De'ebes for the same post. The two men also vowed to contest permanent chairmanship elections which, according to the party's statutes, should be held within 60 days from the post falling vacant. The two factions set different dates for the elections. Altogether, 11 men announced their intention to contest the ballot.

One of them was Hemeida himself, who announced his candidacy at the last minute before the end of the nomination deadline. Another was Talaat El-Sadat, 45, the party's legal adviser and a member of the Hemeida faction. But the group turned against El-Sadat and expelled him from party ranks.

El-Sadat took the matter to the court which ruled on 22 September that elections should be delayed until an administrative court decides whether his party membership is valid.

The following day, a fight broke out at the party's head office between the supporters of El-Sadat and Hemeida, in which knives, chains and sulphur acid were used. A few people were injured, some thugs were arrested and the party's head office was shut down.

On 22 October, El-Sadat's supporters met in a downtown hotel and declared him chairman for one year until final status elections are held.

The following day, Hemeida's supporters also met and elected him chairman for three years.

On 27 October, Zakariya was chosen by his group as party chairman.

Six other men -- Abdel-Salam El-Wahati, Murtada Abu-Ukail, Selim Azouz, Mohamed Yasser Ramadan, Helmi Salem and Mohamed El-Nadi -- also made claims to the chairman's post.

El-Sadat told Al-Ahram Weekly that "the majority and legality are on my side". The same claim was made by Hemeida, who argued that "El-Sadat has no right to nominate himself because he is no longer a party member."

Hemeida, 37, is very proud to lay claim to the title at this early age. "We, the third generation, will prove, especially for those who say that the Liberal Party is dead, that the party is very much alive and we'll lead it to a better future," he said.

Zakariya, for his part, is not worried by the claims made by his rivals. "These two men have been involved in violence and, consequently, are not qualified to be party leaders," he said. "My election is the only legal one."

The Political Parties Committee, an affiliate of the Shura Council in charge of political party affairs, is expected to meet next week to decide on who the legal chairman is. Zakariya's expectation is that the committee will freeze the party's activities but will not shut down its newspapers.

"They will use these rival claims as an excuse to freeze the party's activities. Should this happen, I will go to court," Zakariya said.

Wahid Abdel-Meguid, an expert on domestic politics, believes that Hemeida has better chances than his rivals "because he is the closest to legality. It is questionable whether the other two, Zakariya and El-Sadat, are valid members of the party," Abdel-Meguid said.

He argued that restrictions on the establishment of new parties have turned the already existing ones into battlefields. "What is happening is not only a ban on the establishment of new parties, but a sabotage of the existing ones. Political parties are actually dead, but their funeral is still pending," Abdel-Meguid said.