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Al-Ahram Weekly 19 - 25 August 1999 Issue No. 443 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 19 - 25 August 1999 Issue No. 443
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Six vs three in liberal leadership scramble
By Nadia Abou Al-MagdMahmoud Mustafa Kamel Murad, son of the late founder and leader of the Liberal Party, Mustafa Kamel Murad, invited eight of the nine men claiming his father's position to meet in an attempt to get the deadlocked party back on track.
Murad used the first anniversary of his father's death last week to issue the invitations to the men who have been fighting over the vacant post for a year.
Murad, the party's treasurer, told Al-Ahram Weekly that he was not competing for the party's chairmanship, but was simply trying to "maintain the heritage of my father, as well as the oldest opposition party in this country that has weight, at least historically speaking."
The nine men, each claiming to be the "legitimate" party chairman, are: Ragab Hilal Hemeida, Talaat El-Sadat, Mohamed Farid Zakariya, Mohamed Yasser Ramadan, Helmi Salem, Abdel-Salam El-Wahati, Murtada Abu-Ukail, Selim Azouz and Mohamed El-Nadi.
El-Hamza De'bes, a senior deputy chairman under the late Murad and interim leader for two months after his death, had filed a lawsuit against the nine contenders.
Murad did not invite Zakariya because "he is no longer a party member. Thus, why and how should we invite him?" he asked.
Just before the death of Murad senior, Hemeida and his supporters, including Murad and De'bes, announced that Zakariya had been expelled from party ranks. Zakariya, who was one of the party's founders in 1975, challenged the decision, maintaining that he was the party's sole representative in the Shura Council since 1995.
Hemeida and El-Sadat did not show up for Sunday's meeting. "Twenty-two provinces are backing me up and several newspapers affiliated with the party publish my name as party leader. So why should I meet with those men if I'm the legitimate leader of the party?" Hemeida, the party's representative in the People's Assembly, told the Weekly.
El-Sadat, the party's legal adviser, did not attend because he does not see the point of such meetings. "What is the use of such meetings? Who are those men anyway? I accuse the ruling National Democratic Party of taking sides and fuelling this conflict," El-Sadat told the Weekly.
El-Sadat had initiated a lawsuit against Hemeida and De'bes in October for expelling him from the party. The court ordered that no elections should be held until the issue of El-Sadat's membership was resolved. Nonetheless, the eight men organised their own elections as well as general congresses, which El-Sadat does not acknowledge. El-Sadat claims that he was asked by a general congress to take over the chairmanship until elections were held. However, it is no secret that El-Sadat is in no hurry for elections.
The absence of Hemeida and El-Sadat angered Murad, because it will make it difficult to implement what the six contenders and De'bes agreed upon on Sunday.
According to Murad, the five-hour meeting produced two suggestions. Firstly, the attending contenders agreed that they would give up their claims to leadership, as well as all the lawsuits they had filed against each other. They also agreed to an interim period before elections are organised. The interim period will range from seven months to a year and the interim leader will not be one of the eight contenders and will not nominate himself in the elections.
The second suggestion was that the party should continue to function until permission to organise elections is handed down by a court.
Murad is in favour of the first suggestion because it represents the view of the majority and is an alternative to the "paralysis" that the party has suffered for a whole year.
"The Liberal Party no longer has a body or head. None of the contenders can represent the party in courts or banks because none of them is recognised by the Political Parties Committee," said Murad.
The Political Parties Committee, a semi-governmental body that oversees political party activities, does not acknowledge any of the nine leaders.
"This is my last attempt to salvage the party. Unless something positive materialises, I will quit the whole thing because I'm not capable psychologically, physically or financially of becoming involved in a struggle that appears to be endless and with which I have nothing to do," said Murad.
