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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 August 2000 Issue No. 496 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 August 2000 Issue No. 496
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Stepping into the pasha's shoes
By Shaden Shehab
Saad Zaghloul, Mustafa El-Nahhas and Fouad Serageddin were political giants who led the Wafd Party. Now that Serageddin is dead, who will take over? Six candidates have nominated themselves for the post of chairman of the Wafd before the deadline expired at 5pm on Sunday. Elections will take place on 1 September. Serageddin, who was chairman of the Wafd, the largest opposition party, died on 9 August at the age of 90.
Gomaa
Badrawi
Abaza
Sakka
Khafagi
Hammouda
The six candidates are Noaman Gomaa, first deputy chairman, Fouad Badrawi, assistant secretary-general and grandson of Serageddin, Ibrahim Dessouki Abaza, assistant secretary-general, Mahmoud El-Sakka and Medhat Khafagi, both members of the party's Supreme Authority, and Abdel-Mohsen Hammouda, a party member.
According to party statutes, if the chairman's post becomes vacant, the senior deputy chairman will take over until the 1,000-member general assembly meets within 60 days to elect a successor. Gomaa is filling the post on an interim basis.
To the surprise of many, Yassin Serageddin, the younger brother of the late chairman and an MP, did not nominate himself. For many years, before and after the death of his brother, Yassin had said he had the right to be the successor, often deprecating Gomaa in the process. Wafd sources said he decided against entering the race because he became convinced he would not win and would garner only a small number of votes. "This would have been humiliating for him," one source said.
But Yassin Serageddin had a different story to tell. "My history and dignity are bigger than nominating myself and running against all those others," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I should have been elected uncontested. But my consolation is that Fouad Badrawi is running," he said.
Yassin supports Badrawi "not because he belongs to the family, but because he is the most suitable" for the post. In a statement to the party announcing that he would not run, Yassin said that having young cadres in the party "makes old men like myself reassured about the future of earnest and energetic action for our dear Egypt... I want to assure my sons that the Wafd was never a family party or a one-man party.
"It will be an honour indeed to see that the next elections, which must be conducted in a democratic atmosphere by using glass ballot boxes, come up with a new young leadership that is able to fulfill for the Wafd, Wafdists and for all Egyptians the demands of the nation..."
With Yassin out of the picture, Gomaa's chief rival is Badrawi. Through the party's newspaper, Al-Wafd, Gomaa said that "the current stage the Wafd is going through, after Serageddin's death, is one of transition from leadership to mere chairmanship."
Gomaa also said that the "next chairman must revise the party's statutes, especially those dealing with the chairman's powers and term. Those only suited the late leader."
Gomaa, 66, is a prominent lawyer and former dean of the Faculty of Law at Cairo University. He is popular with many Wafd members, especially the young. He and Badrawi were closest to the late chairman.
Badrawi, 54, has one possible advantage over Gomaa. It is well-known among Wafd members that Serageddin had turned him into his understudy the past few years, possibly grooming him to be his successor.
Badrawi told the Weekly that he took the decision to contest the elections "after thinking about it thoroughly and out of conviction that I will receive great support and many votes. I am not relying on the family name. This is not a king's throne."
Informed sources claim that top party cadres had promised Gomaa that they would support him and would ask Badrawi not to nominate himself if he amended the party's statutes, in his capacity as interim chairman, before the elections took place. Although Gomaa promised that he would, he refused to take action ahead of the elections. As a result, Badrawi nominated himself.
Abaza, the assistant secretary-general, said that he nominated himself "in order to widen the scope of the choice of candidates." He was initially reluctant. "But many top-ranking members advised me to nominate myself and that persuaded me," he said. "If I become chairman, a programme of modernising the party and its cadres will be implemented," he said.
"I am one of the leading figures of the party," Abaza said, noting that he had worked for 16 years in what he called the party's "political kitchen," including 11 years as assistant secretary-general.
El-Sakka, a professor of law at Cairo University, is viewed as a viable candidate and is popular with Wafdists. "The principles of the Wafd are freedom, democracy and [defending] the constitution, and I will stick to them," he told the Weekly. "I want the Wafd to regain its greatness and its wide popularity. It should be as strong as the ruling National Democratic Party. And I am capable of making it so."
El-Sakka has been a member of the Wafd's Supreme Authority since 1985. He was a member of parliament between 1968-1971 and was the head of its legislative committee. He represented Al-Shaab journalist Magdi Hussein in a libel lawsuit brought by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture Youssef Wali. Ironically, Wali was represented by another leading Wafdist, none other than Gomaa.
"Gomaa is one of my best friends, but now he's angry about my nomination," El-Sakka said.
Khafagi is a surgeon and has been a member of the Supreme Authority since 1990. He won the state's Encouragement Award in 1980 for his discovery of a new method of surgery. "I nominated myself because the party has come to a standstill. My aim is to promote the people's awareness of the true meaning of democracy through interaction and discussions with the young," he said.
"I want to attract new people to join the Wafd and make it the party of the people, like it used to be before the 1952 revolution," Khafagi said.
Hammouda is a professor at the faculty of engineering at Cairo University and is little-known to Wafd members as are his party activities.
Abdel-Khaleq, co-editor of Al-Wafd, rejected accusations that the newspaper was biased in Gomaa's favour but added: "The fact is that Noaman Gomaa is chairman until elections take place."
A day after the death of Serageddin, the newspaper labelled Gomaa the "leader." It then published a letter from the secretary-general of the party, Saad Fakhri Abdel-Nour, stating that "in order to safeguard the unity of the Wafd, and in accordance with the pasha's will, I vote for Noaman Gomaa." Abdel-Nour is in Paris.
Infuriated, Badrawi sent a statement to the newspaper insisting that the "pasha had not left a will concerning a successor but left it to the general assembly to decide."
Relates stories:
No party poopers 17 - 23 August 2000
The last pasha 17 - 23 August 2000
The long good-bye 17 - 23 August 2000
