Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Down to earth with few grassroots

THE LEGACY: The Tagammu (literally, the Rally) was first established in 1975 as a leftist forum within the Arab Socialist Union, the nation's sole political party at the time. In 1976, President Anwar El-Sadat decided to allow all three forums he had established -- centrist, rightist and leftist -- to grow into full-fledged political parties. As a result, a 123-member founding committee met on 10 April 1976 and the Tagammu Party was founded under the leadership of Khaled Mohieddin.

"From its inception, the Tagammu was a coalition of Marxists, Nasserists and Arab nationalists. El-Sadat took the arbitrary decision that this was what it should be," explained Salah Eissa, editor-in-chief of the weekly Al-Qahira and a prominent party member. "This state of affairs resulted in what I would describe as 'organisational disputes', which plagued the party for the major part of its history," Eissa said, noting that because the Nasserists were the majority, they felt they should lead the party.

This was not a dispute over policy, as the slogans raised by Tagammu were largely Nasserist anyway, but rather a squabble over leadership positions. Also in the mix were the illegal communist parties, particularly the Egyptian Communist Party (ECP), whose members participated in establishing the Tagammu. The situation that folowed was one which ultimately gave the ECP the upper hand within the party structure.

"But there were other illegal groups, such as the Workers Party, and others who had active members within the Tagammu," Eissa added. "Consequently, conflict erupted between these factions on who should call the shots."

Despite internal tensions, the party has been held together by a common spirit of leftist symphaties: sympathy with the 1952 anti-monarchy Free Officers Revolution; strong opposition to imperialism and Zionism; support for Arab unity and the Palestinian cause; and defence of national independence, whose definition included democracy and freedom of expression. The Nasserist slogan "Freedom, socialism and [Arab] unity" was raised to encapsulate this general trend.

Beyond the party's internal disputes, its weekly mouthpiece Al-Ahali (The People) reflected a strong anti-government (i.e., anti-El-Sadat) sentiment. The first issue of the newspaper was published in 1978, but four months after it hit the newsstands, two consecutive issues were confiscated. Al-Ahali reacted by suspending publication on 1 June 1978. It resumed publishing on 12 July 1978, putting out 11 issues -- seven of which were confiscated. The paper was eventually shut down on 25 October of the same year and was not allowed to reappear until May 1982.

Amina El-Naqqash, the newspaper's managing editor, recalls what she describes as the "glory days" of Al-Ahali. "Distribution went up at one point to 160,000, and the newspaper would sometimes sell out and we would have to go out and distribute additional copies ourselves. Some of the confiscated issues we would hide at home. There was really the sense that we were doing something important. We defended the people who were on trial for the 1977 food riots. There were strikes, such as the railroad workers strike, and there were the Central Security Forces riots. Throughout, our policy was one of mobilisation."

THE FORK IN THE ROAD: Tagammu candidates emerged losers in the parliamentary elections of 1984 and 1987. "Obviously, there was pressure from the government on the party at that time," recounted Eissa. "Candidates simply could not win, and this drove party members to reconsider their tactics."

Change came most clearly on two fronts: the relationship of the Tagammu with the illegal communist parties and the content of Al-Ahali. "As of 1988, the relationship of the Tagammu with the illegal communists was brought relatively under control," Eissa explained. The change came after "it became clear that the government was nervous about the party being a front for them. At the time, the government was also worried about the Labour Party being a front for the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood."

With regard to Al-Ahali, El-Naqqash said that "the party realised that our failure in the elections was a result of the newspaper's hard-line policy and, consequently, that policy was changed from 'mobilisation' to what we call 'relative moderation' -- and that is the policy we still follow today."

Hussein Abdel-Razeq, who was a member of the first editorial board and editor-in-chief of the newspaper, resigned in May 1988. Since then, the newspaper has seen a succession of chief editors, namely the late Philip Gallab, Mahmoud El-Maraghi, Abdel-'Al El-Baqori and, currently, Nabil Zaki. But the basic policy of "relative moderation" has prevailed. As El-Naqqash pointed out, "We are a party newspaper, and the editor-in-chief has always been a senior party member."

The party quietly dropped the socialist slogan from its platform during the 1995 elections after local and international developments threw leftist activists into a state of disarray. Some senior party officials believe that the July 1998 party congress that adopted a new platform marked the end of the state of confusion that had prevailed. According to Abdel-Razeq, currently assistant chief of the party's politburo, "the congress was probably the most important thing that happened since the elections of 1995, because the programme that was adopted adhered to our principles, but took into account the local, regional and international changes."

Hence, the interim platform does not aim at establishing socialism now, Abdel-Razeq explained, but focuses instead on democracy and what is termed as "independent development." This newly adopted political strategy has solved two problems, Abdel-Razeq said. The first is the dispute within the party regarding political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. The second is the party's position on a political settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Eissa disagrees, stating that the platform is self-contradictory. "It reflects someone who wants to get out of his old clothes but does not have an alternative yet," he said.

Then, of course, there is the age-old problem of the connection between theory and practice. Some senior party officials would argue that the rift between the party's ideology and the party's practice has been widening with time. "Ideas are not implemented soundly and this is because daily activity is governed by the prevailing political balance of forces. The margin of movement for any political party is limited -- so limited, in fact, that parties do not have the ability to draw distinctions between themselves," Eissa argued.

Abdel-Razeq agrees that the government continues to limit the space of political activity for the opposition, but adds that perhaps the opposition itself has become too complacent. So much so that Abdel-Razeq jokingly sites the small march conducted by opposition party leaders before the US embassy in 1998 (in protest against American-British air-strikes against Iraq) as their "sole attempt to take action and break out of their isolation."

El-Naqqash pointed out that activists were also disillusioned by current social trends. "We used to think that the implementation of a privatisation policy would bring the country to a standstill. Yet, it passed without much resistance," she said. "Sort of leaves you in the cold."

Adding insult to injury were the internal problems of other parties, featuring quarrels and disputes that only brought ridicule from the people. "This affected us by creating a public attitude that does not take political parties seriously anymore," lamented Abdel-Razeq.

Perhaps the most poignant example of internal discord in the past decade came during the 1999 nationwide referendum on nominating President Hosni Mubarak for a fourth term in office. In previous referendums -- held in 1981, 1987 and 1993 -- the Tagammu voted against another term. In 1999, the party decided to abstain. "Some people viewed this decision as an indication that the party, in actual practice, was moving into the arms of the government. There was conflict over this issue, not only in Cairo, but also in the party's provincial branches," recounted Abdel-Razeq. Although the conflict was eventually contained, Abdel-Ghafar Shukr resigned his position as assistant chief of the politburo.

Eissa pointed out that with the rise of Islamist militants, the party leadership has revised its list of enemies, deciding that "the fascism" of these groups was a worse threat than that of the government. Accordingly, priority has been given to fighting the militants. "That is not all," Eissa said. "There was also a clear message from the government: if you're moderate, you get into parliament; if you're hard-line, you don't. We are dealing with political parties that win legitimacy by getting into parliament, so a pragmatic decision had to be taken. The available options were all bad."

ELECTIONS 2000: The Tagammu was the first party to come out with an election platform, entitled Popular Participation Is the Road to Change. The 20-page platform is an abstract of the 1998 party programme that calls for "a proper mix between planning and market forces" as a recipe for economic development, social justice and democratic reforms. The author, Abdel-Razeq, argues that the relevance of the document to the outcome of the elections is tenuous. "It is not viable that the party platform be the basis for the success or failure of a candidate. The election process is still very much governed by traditional factors, such as patronage and the candidate's potential to deliver services to his constituents, in addition to another very important factor -- money. The political factor is very weak."

And yet, there is a strong belief within the Tagammu that espousing certain political positions is an added attraction for candidates. "Although candidates have told us that there is no need for publishing a lengthy electoral platform because no one will read it, they speak in their campaigns about the positions of Tagammu on many issues and this has given them added credibility," said Abdel-Razeq.

Twists and turns in the party outlook have forced Tagammu to be more realistic and the party is not anticipating a major victory in the upcoming elections. On the one hand, no deal with the government is in sight. (According to Abdel-Razeq, "a deal means that two parties sit down and agree on something, and this has not happened.") On the other hand, efforts to create an opposition electoral front also seem to have failed. Abdel-Razeq, who was a driving force behind the Political Parties Coordination Committee established following the 1995 elections, said that just when the work of this Committee was about to bear fruit, it fell apart. The Tagammu contested the 1995 elections in coordination with the Nasserists, but according to senior party officials, the coordination was insufficient.

The Tagammu, says Abdel-Razeq, "is fighting the next election battle because, despite the limitations on the process, the ballot gives us a small margin of flexibility to connect to people. We have always noted that after election time our membership increases. Moreover, you cannot expose the shortcomings of the process if you are not involved. And, finally, if we had the tools and the following to arrange a boycott, we may have considered it. As it is, we have neither and so we will do our utmost to connect with people."

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'Opposition is not about loud voices'
Realism on the left 2 - 8 November 1995
See The 1995 elections

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