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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452
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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 People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Party-poopers
By Mona El-NahhasAs the bitter power struggle between Adel Hussein, Labour Party secretary-general, and Ahmed Shukri, son of party leader Ibrahim Shukri, continues, the party itself is imploding.
The state of anarchy has been growing since April's executive committee elections, following which Hussein was accused of rigging the vote. Then, 10 days ago, and without consulting party leaders, Hussein suspended actor Hamdi Ahmed, one of the party's founders. Ali Abul-Naga, Nagi El-Shehabi and Ahmed Shukri, three senior figures, were also suspended for a year.
"We were dismissed just because we dared to differ with Hussein," said Ahmed Shukri.
The dismissed members had asked for details of the party's budget, and insisted Hussein stop issuing arbitrary decisions. They also accused Hussein of attempting to turn the party's mouthpiece Al-Shaab, edited by his nephew Magdi Hussein, into a paper reflecting his personal views.
In protest against the suspensions 124 party members from four governorates have resigned.
The faction surrounding Shukri intends to call for a general conference next month. Shukri himself describes Hussein's decisions as lacking legitimacy and violating the party's statutes. Those statutes, he insists, demand that any investigation of members charged with committing infringements be conducted by a legal committee headed by the party's chairman.
"The legal committee," he further argues, "is not empowered to dismiss members before consulting the party's executive committee."
Since Hussein ignored all these procedures, Shukri and his three colleagues intend to ignore their unilateral suspensions. "We will attend the next meeting of the party's executive committee and go on practising our jobs as usual," he said.
The party chairman, Ibrahim Shukri, has kept an almost complete silence throughout the whole affair, broken only very occasionally to deny the existence of any splits. He declined to comment on the current situation.
His son, meanwhile, is determined that the extraordinary conference will go ahead. "We will hold our general conference next month, and if the chairman does not move to dismiss Hussein and his supporters we will select a new chairman for the party. We will not stand helpless and leave Hussein to undermine the party's unity," he said.
Hussein, for his part, dismissed the allegations against him as groundless. The decision to dismiss the four party members, he insisted, was not taken by him.
"The party's legal committee took the decision after they were charged with attempting to foil last April's general conference and distort the image of the party," he said. The decision of the legal committee was approved by the party's executive committee, he continued. "Hence the decision reflects the opinion of the majority of party members."
Members holding leading positions in the party must abide by the regulatory statutes, Hussein argues. "Nobody can impose his own ideology or exceed these limits otherwise he will be subject to legal interrogation."
In response to Shukri's allegations, Hussein is keen to stress that the political line of Al-Shaab reflects the will of the party's leading figures. He also claimed that the budget of the party and its mouthpiece are regularly submitted to the party leaders and sent to the Central Auditing Authority.
"We are not working in the darkness," he concluded.
