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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Labour in turmoil
By Mona El-Nahhas and Nadia Abu El-MagdInternal splits within the Labour Party took a very serious turn on Tuesday, when party members held two separate general congresses and withdrew confidence from chairman Ibrahim Shukri, 84, and secretary-general Adel Hussein.
In the first congress, held at the party's office in Hadayeq El-Qubba, some 1,400 members nominated Hamdi Ahmed, a retired cinema actor, as the new party chairman. Ahmed's supporters condemned the "excesses" committed by Shukri and Hussein. In a statement they issued, they called for dissolving the party's chapters, banning the publication of the party's bi-weekly mouthpiece, Al-Shaab, impounding the party's funds and notifying all concerned bodies to stop dealing with Shukri and Hussein.
In the second congress, held in Nasr City and attended by some 1,200 party members, Ahmed Idris, a socialist figure, was nominated chairman. Idris's supporters also called for a ban on Al-Shaab and for an immediate investigation of its role in inciting last week's student demonstrations at Al-Azhar University. They announced that the new leadership would affirm the principles of freedom and democracy, as well as cooperation with the other parties.
Minutes of the proceedings of the two congresses will be submitted to the Political Parties Committee, an affiliate of the Shura Council, which will take a final decision on the party's future.
On 8 May, hundreds of Al-Azhar University students took to the streets in protest against the re-publication of a novel, A banquet for Seaweed, by Syrian writer Haydar Haydar. Al-Shaab had printed a series of inflammatory articles condemning the novel as blasphemous.
The newspaper's chief editor and two journalists are currently serving prison sentences for slandering Youssef Wali, deputy prime minister and minister of agriculture.
In a news conference held yesterday at the party's headquarters in Sayeda Zeinab, Hussein described the two congresses as the "latest acts of sabotage." Hussein described the meetings as "absurd" and said they had nothing to do with the party.
Seif El-Islam Hassan El-Banna, a leading figure in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, said at the conference that the "battle" led by the Labour Party "is an honourable battle against corruption, Zionism and the enemies of religion."
At this point, groups of people in the attending crowd started to chant: "With our blood and souls, we redeem you, Islam."
Tuesday's "coup" by Hamdi Ahmed, one of the party's founders, came one week after he had started restructuring the party's leading committees in an attempt to revive its socialist ideology and take hold of the party's general secretariats that had been seized by Islamists. Ahmed replaced the party's executive committee with a new one, headed by himself and including 10 members. He also notified the Political Parties Committee of the new make-up.
A month earlier, Nagi El-Shehabi, Labour's assistant secretary-general, decided to resign and establish a new party under the name of the Democratic Generation. The new party's founding documents were submitted to the Political Parties Committee in order to receive a license. The committee said during a meeting on Tuesday that it will review, in future meetings, conditions inside the Labour Party, as well as El-Shehabi's request.
Hamdi Ahmed and his supporters said Shukri and his colleagues had turned the party into a religious group by means of a coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood, thus violating the Political Parties Law that bans the formation of parties on religious grounds. They accused the leadership they claimed they had ousted of rigging the last executive committee elections and receiving funds from foreign countries, such as Iran and Sudan. They also accused Al-Shaab of inciting the demonstrations at Al-Azhar University, in a way which "threatens the stability and security of Egypt."
Hamdi Ahmed told Al-Ahram Weekly that his action was necessary to revive the party's erstwhile socialist platform, after the Islamists had gained control over all the party's activities. He described the decisions passed by Tuesday's congress as legal, because the number of those present exceeded the required quorum. Ahmed expressed hope that the political Parties Committee would settle the current power struggle, "instead of leaving us to fight each other".
In a statement read out at the Shukri-Hussein news conference, they said, "We would like to clearly draw attention [to the fact] that the Political Parties Committee has no right to dissolve or freeze the activities of any party. Any action of this sort would be considered a glaring violation of, and aggression against, the law."
Hussein denied that Al-Shaab's campaign against the novel had anything to do with the upcoming general elections in November.
"God is my witness, this campaign has nothing to do with elections. What elections anyway? ... We are angry for a very obvious reason: God was insulted," an angry Hussein told the conference.
Hussein also announced that Al-Shaab's deputy editor-in-chief, Talaat Rumeih, had just been sentenced to six months in prison after he was convicted of libel.
A defiant Hussein told the Weekly that they will not give up "Jihad for God's sake as long as we are alive."
Hussein warned the government against dissolving or freezing the party, declaring that that would be a very dangerous political decision because "the ongoing battle does not involve a party against the government, but the nation against the government."
