Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Al-Ahram:

A Diwan of contemporary life (365)

For the first time in Egyptian history, a parliament lasted exactly one day. Beginning at 10 in the morning, it was dissolved just before 8.00pm. The reasons behind this extraordinary truncated session revolved around Saad Zaghlul's Wafd Party -- those who sought to prop it up and the king who desperately sought to topple it. Al-Ahram retraces that famous day in 1925 and its repercussions inside Egypt and abroad while Dr Yunan Labib Rizk* recalls this briefest of cabinet tenures

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The 10-hour parliament

On 23 March 1925 the shortest-lived parliament in Egyptian history opened and closed. It began at 10.00am and ended at 7.55pm the same day, when Prime Minister Ahmed Ziwar Pasha announced a royal decree dissolving the representative assembly. The Chamber of Deputies had lasted just under 10 hours.

Al-Ahram covered this briefest of moments in Egyptian parliamentary history in diligent detail in its following day's issue, focusing on the events on the streets outside the parliamentary building and on what transpired inside. Over the next few days it continued to monitor the reactions to this extraordinary event both in Egypt and abroad.

Al-Ahram's correspondent set off very early that day to cover the opening session and to his surprise he found that, when he arrived at 8.00am, most of the deputies had already taken their seats.

At 9.45 the royal procession of King Fouad set off from Abdin Palace to the sound of a 101-gun salute. "The royal carriage was drawn by six steeds, one of which was ridden by a groom in brocaded livery and at the back of the carriage stood two footmen in red uniforms. His Excellency the prime minister was seated to the left of His Royal Majesty, who waved to the cheering crowds as his carriage proceeded with slow and stately dignity towards its destination."

What the correspondent failed to mention, however, was that the crowds were also cheering for nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul, something which did not bode well for the king. His majesty had already had enough troubles from the "leader of the nation" who had served as Egypt's first popularly elected prime minister from 28 January to 24 November 1924, and it was with no small satisfaction that he had watched the Zaghlul government fall in the wake of the assassination of Sir Lee Stack, governor-general of Sudan. After taking advantage of those circumstances to dissolve the 1924 parliament, in which the Zaghlul-led Wafd Party had enjoyed a more than 90 per cent majority, King Fouad succeeded in forming a royalist government, under the premiership of Ziwar Pasha, and in engineering the creation of the Ittihad, a political party entirely at the service of the crown. As a result, Fouad felt assured that he would enjoy a period of unhampered autocratic rule and that all that remained was to secure a loyal parliament.

Towards this end, the Ziwar government used every means at its disposal to realise the monarch's wishes. In order to keep the Wafd out of power, the government introduced fundamental amendments to the electoral law. In so doing, Al-Ahram wrote on 5 February 1925, "it has totally undermined the rights of voters, heedless of the fact that it has undermined the constitutional edifice." In addition to changing 106 out of the 214 constituencies to narrow the Wafd's chances, it was decided that pencils instead of pens would be used to mark the ballots, obviously to facilitate tampering. Furthermore, Minister of Interior Ismail Sidqi held numerous meetings with governors and directorate chiefs to prevail upon them to use their influence to prevent pro-Wafdist candidates from running. A week before the elections he issued a decree banning mass assemblies near the polling stations, the setting up of roadblocks "at a distance from the polling stations to be determined by the police," prohibiting rallies and demonstrations on election day and, finally, threatening action against students taking part in electoral campaigns if they are not registered voters.

Confidential British documents reveal much about what transpired in the period between the second phase of parliamentary elections on 13 March and the opening of the elected parliament on 23 March. In a telegram to his superiors in the Foreign Office, the British high commissioner in Cairo reported that all eyes were on what he called "the waverers." At the end of election day, he wrote that the results so far were 103 anti-Zaghlul deputies to 102 pro-Zaghlul deputies. He added that election runoffs had to be held in eight constituencies and that out of the winners the true allegiances of only two delegates remained unknown.

The following day he reported that 105 anti-Wafdists had won as opposed to 101 pro-Wafdists, in addition to a handful of delegates who had not declared their positions. Al-Ahram wrote, "The government has secured a majority in the elections and will, therefore, remain in power." The high commissioner was equally confident of that outcome. He felt certain that the waverers would support the government and, moreover, predicted that 15 pro-Wafd delegates would jump over to the government's side.

The high commissioner was overly optimistic. When he met with Sidqi four days later, the minister of the interior told him that, up to that point, the elected parliamentary deputies were equally divided between pro- and anti- Zaghlul factions, with 90 in each camp, while 30 had not yet decided. Nor would the British official have found it encouraging to read the following commentary in The Daily Herald, which Al-Ahram cited in its edition of 14 March: "The elections in Egypt have turned into a neck-and- neck race between the Zaghlulists and their adversaries. The result so far must be very disconcerting for the government, which had availed itself of every means of pressure at its disposal and which had been certain that it would crush the Wafd and undermine Zaghlul's leadership."

To win over the waverers, Sidqi announced that if they supported the Wafd they would be held responsible for the dissolution of parliament a second time. Echoing his statement more forcefully, Al-Siyasa, the mouthpiece for the Liberal Constitutionalist Party, declared, "Waverers, your indecision and lack of resolution in lending your support to the ship of salvation is an unpardonable crime. Saad Zaghlul was the captain of this ship in the long dark days of the recently dissolved parliament and the ship almost sank."

Returning to the events on that unprecedented day in the history of the Egyptian parliament -- founded nearly 60 years earlier, in 1866 -- Al-Ahram's correspondent relates that King Fouad entered the chamber, followed by ministers, government officials and members of the royal household. After the king took his place on the throne, "Prime Minister Ziwar Pasha presented the speech from the throne at a slow and measured pace." Towards the end of the speech, the prime minister cautioned the parliamentary deputies. "The success of your assembly is contingent upon your ability to project an appropriate image of our nation, towards which end you must seek harmony in word and unification of ranks, thereby bringing order to government and the spread of peace and security throughout the country. This will not be achieved unless you pursue the course of wisdom, refrain from discord and mutual recrimination and abandon the futile and ineffectual political movements that obstruct the pursuit of general welfare and jeopardise the prevalence of law and order."

The thinly veiled warning of the address would not have been lost on the Wafd Party leadership and its supporters. Nevertheless, the "leader of the nation" had every reason to be confident of the results of that day's parliamentary session. The Al-Ahram correspondent relates, "When Zaghlul Pasha arrived... all eyes turned towards him as he walked down the aisle towards a front-row seat where he turned and raised both hands in the air in response to the applause of his well-wishers. Indeed, from the moment he stepped into the chamber he was greeted with exuberant cheers."

At 11.00, once the king and the government ministers departed, the assembled deputies took the oath of loyalty to the nation, the king and the constitution. Then the battle began, the lines clearly drawn between the Wafdists, who wanted to proceed immediately with the election of the speaker of the house and his two deputies, and the government's supporters who wanted to postpone the election until the following day, or at least until the evening, in order to buy time to exert pressure on the waverers. Since opinion in the house was obviously in favour of the Wafdist camp, Tawfiq Doss, one of the few remaining ministers, took a risk by agreeing to hold the election. Thus, Al-Ahram reports, "The parliamentary deputies cast their votes by secret ballot as stipulated by parliamentary regulations. The results were 123 votes in favour of His Excellency Saad Zaghlul and 83 in favour of Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat Pasha, the government nominee. Three deputies were absent during the vote."

With a poise that must have concealed his exultation, Zaghlul rose to the podium -- which had been vacated by Ahmed Mazlum Pasha who, as senior member of the house, had presided over the session until that moment -- and delivered a short acceptance speech. He was proud to have been given the confidence of the nation, willingly accepted the burdens of office and prayed to God to aid him "in the service of our nation and our beloved king."

At 1.00 parliament adjourned and resumed four hours later in order to elect the deputy speakers. Again the Wafd emerged with a considerable majority, with Wafdist Ali El-Shamsi and Wisa Wasef obtaining 119 and 117 votes respectively, as opposed to 76 and 74 votes for the government candidates Abdel-Hamid Said and Youssef Suleiman.

The outcome of the elections dumbfounded the palace, the government and the British. There had always been a possibility that Zaghlul might win, but not with such a majority. In an urgent report to London, the high commissioner wrote that Sidqi had told him he had several reasons to believe that the waverers would vote in favour of the government. But Sidqi had also informed him that in the opening session of parliament the Wafdists had secretly planned to seat their delegates on either side of the waverers, thereby succeeding in influencing their votes.

Al-Ahram was ecstatic. "The country is reverberating with this news that demonstrates how dearly the Egyptian people cherish their noble leader. The election of Zaghlul as speaker of the Chamber of Deputies is incontestable proof that the majority of the deputies are on his side. Indeed, this majority is greater than Saad Pasha himself had anticipated."

Saad Zaghlul King Fouad Ahmed Ziwar Pasha Ismail Sidqi Pasha

The newspaper adds, "Our offices have been inundated with telegrams and telephone calls asking whether the reports are true, as all are eager to learn what direction the battle will take now. Al-Ahram, as well as the offices of other newspapers and the 'House of the Nation' (the home of Saad Zaghlul) have also received an endless stream of letters and telegrams congratulating His Excellency Saad Zaghlul on his astounding victory."

The jubilation, however, was short-lived. At the request of the palace and the high commissioner, the cabinet held an emergency meeting to discuss what steps should be taken. After four hours of deliberation, the ministers moved to ask the king to dissolve the parliament and, in anticipation of the repercussions of this action, they summoned the chief of public security, instructing him "to be extra vigilant in preserving public order," and dispatched telegrams to provincial governors and directorate chiefs with similar instructions.

At precisely 7.55pm, Prime Minister Ziwar entered the Chamber of Deputies and announced the royal edict decreeing the dissolution of parliament. Then followed the publication of the communiqués associated with the decree. The first was the resignation of the cabinet, "provoked by the hostile spirit of the legislative assembly, a spirit indicative of the pursuance of a policy that brought calamities which our country is still in the process of remedying..."

King Fouad had refused to accept the resignation of the government and responded to the demand to dissolve the parliament, because "the honourable deputies who had behaved in that manner had not taken into consideration the higher interests of the country in these difficult times." The statement continues, "We have no doubt that the electorate had no intention of steering the country to the straits to which it was driven by a spirit that gives precedence to personalities over the general welfare."

Concluding its coverage of this session, Al-Ahram reports that since the police had taken all precautions to ensure security around the parliament building, "the Chamber of Deputies adjourned and its members departed without incident."

If most studies that treat this chapter of Egyptian parliamentary history stop at this point -- 7.55pm on Monday, 23 March 1925, this was not the case with Al-Ahram. "This act" was the subject of lengthy commentaries through which the newspaper attempted to shed light, albeit indirectly, on the facts. Al-Ahram could not come out and say, for example, that the British and the palace were in collusion over the downfall of this parliament, but it could cite The Daily Herald which observed that the articles in the British press predicting the dissolution of parliament gave reason to believe that this action was instigated by British authorities, particularly as "no parliament can come into being in Cairo that does not support the government chosen by the High Commissioner."

Al-Ahram also relayed to its readers criticisms that appeared in the British press of British policies in Egypt. The Westminster Gazette, for example, expressed its dismay at the dissolution of parliament because "the elections were the product of the emergence of a general desire for and commitment towards promoting earnest efforts to establish a democratic government on solid foundations." More ominously, The Yorkshire Post wrote, "The British who know Egypt well are unable to conceal their anxiety over what had transpired."

However, the majority of British newspapers rejoiced at King Fouad's action. One went so far as to suggest that a precedent could be found in British history when, in 1399, the British parliament met to depose Richard II and then dissolved itself. The comparison, of course, withstands little scrutiny. Nevertheless, reflecting more mainstream British opinion, The London Times commented, "Up to now there is nothing to justify the fear that the dissolution of the parliament will lead to violent pro-Zaghlul demonstrations." The Daily News wrote, "The surprise action of the Egyptian cabinet has closed off all avenues to Zaghlul whose strategy to resume power involved pretending that he hoped to form a coalition government involving all political parties." The Daily Mail remarked, not without a hint of satisfaction, "The rapid action undertaken by the Egyptian government has turned the Wafd's calculations upside down and upset the schemes it was plotting all that day." In a similar vein, The Daily Telegraph commented, "Enlightened Egyptian opinion greeted the dissolution of parliament with a sense of relief. The rapidity with which parliament was dissolved struck a devastating blow to Zaghlul's plans to resume wielding power from behind the scenes."

Al-Ahram, however, offset these commentaries by citing reactions in the French and Italian press. Under the headline, "The Ostrich Strategy," the Paris Midi wrote that the British easily delude themselves into believing that maintaining silence is enough to solve unpleasant problems, but that in this case "they backed the dissolution of parliament in order to gain time so as to conduct the next elections more skilfully than the recent ones." L'Information observed, "The victory of the nationalists bodes ill for the British who have greatly underestimated the strength of the Egyptian resistance." L'humanite remarked scathingly that British colonialism had given Egypt "a new lesson in their sacred democracy," while Le Depeche de toulouse held that were the Egyptian people put to a free referendum Zaghlul Pasha would emerge the uncontested victor. "However, in spite of all their concocted statistics, the British authorities have not been able to thwart the nationalists."

The Italian press was equally damning and expressed the general astonishment. ll-Tribuna wrote, "We do not believe that in the entire history of parliamentary institutions there has been as short-lived a parliament as the recent Egyptian Council of Deputies." Similarly, Il-Epoca wrote, "We are witness to a unique historical event, the dissolution of a parliamentary body 10 hours after its opening session."

Meanwhile, in Egypt the dissolution of parliament had many complex repercussions. Its effect was counterproductive serving to strengthen rather than to weaken the Wafd, as is evidenced by the many articles and letters that filled successive Al-Ahram editions of this period.

Under the headline, "The Cabinet and Government: an onerous responsibility," one reader asked whether the government, following the dissolution of parliament, would have the necessary wisdom, forbearance, justice, brotherhood and equality "to steady agitated nerves." Would it be, he asked, "a government for all the people or a government of a single political party?"

A second writer wrote that he could understand why the Egyptian people were dispirited in the wake of the recent event. He appealed to them to rally their forces, "for they are not a people to be so easily driven to despair."

Even leading figures of the Ittihad Party that had run against the Wafd in the elections were incensed by the government's action. Mahmoud Allam, secretary-general of this party, had dispatched a congratulatory telegram to Zaghlul on the occasion of his election as speaker of the house, although he later denied this. More significantly, Aziz Mirhom, one of the founders of Ittihad, shifted to the Wafd because he wanted to become "a soldier in the imperilled nationalist congregation."

The Wafd itself closed ranks to defend its leader. There were so many meetings of senators and deputies of the deposed parliament in the "House of the Nation" that it became a virtual surrogate parliament. Simultaneously, such associations as the Women's Saad Zaghlul Committee issued successive appeals to the nation, praising the people for their steadfastness and commitment to their principles in spite of the administration's heavy-handedness.

Above all, the government had failed to break the will of Saad Zaghlul, who held a number of press interviews condemning the actions of the Ziwar government.

The atmosphere in Egypt could not have been tenser, and against this background it must have furnished the parliamentary deputies some mild relief to read the following commentary by Fikri Abaza. "I couldn't believe it," wrote the noted satirist. "In fact, I would never have believed it had I not seen the honourable deputies on their way home carrying their office attire in a bundle on their back. My God! If I had been a candidate and had spoken and wrote and declared and spent and flattered and ingratiated myself, and then won, went to Cairo, got fitted at the tailors, got dressed and took my seat in parliament, only to be told to leave because parliament was dismissed, by God, I think I would have burst."

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* The author is a professor of history and head of Al-Ahram History Studies Centre.

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