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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 Apr. - 5 May 1999 Issue No. 427 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 Apr. - 5 May 1999 Issue No. 427
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Focus Special Travel Sports People Features Living Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Hussein Group steps up anti-Wali campaign
By Gamal Essam El-DinThe Labour Party has survived a split within its own ranks after Prosecutor-General Ragaa El-Arabi shelved a complaint by four candidates who had failed to win in executive committee elections. The four charged that the elections were rigged in favour of the Hussein Group -- an allusion to the party's Secretary-General Adel Hussein and his nephew, Magdi Hussein, chief editor of the party's newspaper Al-Shaab.
Following an investigation, El-Arabi ruled that the elections were clean and ordered the release of the ballot boxes which had been impounded. El-Arabi's decision, political analysts said, saved the party from a possible split and also gave the Hussein Group the opportunity to strengthen its hold on party ranks.
In its first meeting last Friday, the party's new executive committee elected Adel Hussein as secretary-general and Abdel-Hamid Barakat as acting secretary-general to fill in for Hussein in case of absence. Four assistants to the secretary-general, including Ahmed Shukri, the son of party leader Ibrahim Shukri, were also elected.
The executive committee also elected the party's political bureau which now consists of the party's chairman, Shukri, Hussein, five assistants to the secretary-general and eight executive committee members. The bureau is a mix of Islamist-oriented members plus one Copt, Gamal Asaad Abdel-Malak. The post of deputy chairman remains vacant.
Addressing the meeting, Shukri denied that the executive committee elections had been rigged. "They were characterised by transparency and fair competition," Shukri said. He added that some 107 members contested the elections, while the party's general congress was required to elect a 55-member executive committee. Shukri said the congress had been expected to draw around 1,300 delegates representing the party's branches in various governorates. "For a variety of reasons, however, 25 per cent of these delegates failed to show up," said Shukri.
He said the number of elected executive committee members was raised from 45 to 55. "It has become a tradition that during every general congress, the committee membership is increased by between 10 to 15 people," Shukri said. "So, the membership of the executive committee has been raised over the years from 20 to 55." Shukri was responding to criticism levelled by the anti-Hussein camp that Hussein increased the number of executive committee members to ensure that his supporters get an overwhelming majority.
Shukri affirmed that the party will maintain its Islamist and pan-Arab policies.
For its part, the anti-Hussein camp, led by Nagi El-Shehabi, a former assistant to the party's secretary-general, rejected the election results and called for an extraordinary national congress. El-Shehabi claimed that he has the support of the party's delegates in 11 governorates. El-Shehabi's camp is reported to include Ahmed Shukri, actor Hamdi Ahmed and Hamed Zidan, former chief editor of Al-Shaab.
Wahid Abdel-Meguid, an expert at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said the Labour Party elections showed that opposition parties are vulnerable to internal rifts and splits.
"The internal structure of these parties lacks coherence and depends mainly on a number of grey-haired leaders. Once the party's chairman passes away, the party turns chaotic and disintegrates," Abdel-Meguid told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Meanwhile, Adel Hussein announced that the party will step up a long-term campaign against "the American-Zionist alliance through a concerted effort to liquidate the Zionist network which managed to penetrate Egyptian society and the state's institutions".
El-Arabi decided last week to put four Al-Shaab journalists -- Adel Hussein, Magdi Hussein, Salah Bedeiwi and cartoonist Essam Hanafi -- on trial before a criminal court after a libel complaint was filed by Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali. The trial will begin on 15 May.
In turn, Al-Shaab announced it will turn the campaign against Wali into "a trial for all the policies which aim at normalising relations with the Zionist enemy at the expense of Egypt's national security". It asserted that it delivered to the prosecutor almost 150 documents implicating Wali in deals with the Israelis. "Sixty per cent of these documents are in English, Hebrew and even Dutch," Al-Shaab said. It added that the four journalists are planning to summon 33 witnesses -- scientists, university graduates and farmers -- who, it said, had been unjustly treated as a result of Wali's policies.
Several national newspapers and magazines continued to rally to Wali's defence. One magazine affirmed that "Wali, as agriculture minister and secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), is not acting on his own. He is a deputy prime minister and is implementing state and government policies," the magazine said. It accused Al-Shaab of attempting to drive a wedge between cabinet ministers by classifying some as patriots and branding others as traitors. The magazine published a number of documents showing that Wali was not involved in any secret deals with the Israelis.
In another development, businessman Hussein Sabbour was summoned on Tuesday by the prosecutor-general to testify in connection with a libel complaint which he had filed last week against four Al-Shaab journalists. The four -- Adel Hussein, Magdi Hussein, Amer Abdel-Moneim and Talaat Romeih -- were questioned by the prosecutor last week. Al-Shaab alleged in a recent issue that Sabbour played a major role in underestimating the selling price of a large number of public companies which were slated for privatisation in the last few years. Sabbour said the majority of privatised companies had incurred financial losses and that privatisation had led to an improvement in their performance.
