Trouble at the top
Was last month's decision to reshuffle the Nasserist Party leadership a subtle blow aimed at the group's secretary-general? Mona El-Nahhas investigates
When Nasserist Party Chairman Diaeddin Dawoud decided, last month, to widen his four deputies' areas of responsibility, many viewed the move as a way of sidelining Ahmed Hassan, the party's secretary-general. Hassan himself was certainly unhappy; he refused to publish the news in the party's mouthpiece, Al-Arabi.
Both Hassan and Dawoud, as well as the four deputies, claim that "nothing serious has happened". Nonetheless, a junior Nasserist member who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly on condition of anonymity asserted that a crisis was brewing between Dawoud and Hassan.
According to the source, "Hassan, who has lots of responsibilities as secretary-general, was seen as a threat by the four deputies and the party leader himself. Dawoud's decision was quite simply meant to marginalise the role of the secretary-general, which has created a very tense situation that they are trying hard to conceal so as to look like a united front."
Dawoud himself keenly denied the existence of any conflicts between party members. "The decision," he said, "did not aim in any way to deprive the secretary-general of his many responsibilities." What it did attempt to do, he said, was "reorganise the roles of the party's leading members, in light of new statutes issued last July introducing several amendments to the party's leading posts". Dawoud said that those who speak of a crisis are attempting to sow seeds of discord within the party's ranks.
The details of Dawoud's decision and how it will affect his four deputies are as follows: Hamed Mahmoud will replace Dawoud when the party leader is absent; he will also be responsible for the party's financial and parliamentary affairs, as well as its committees in eight governorates. Sami Sharaf will head the party's international political affairs division. Mohamed Abul-Ela and Ahmed Hamada will take charge of the secretariats of women, mass communication and labour, as well as supervise the party's committees in the remaining governorates.
According to party sources, this redistribution of roles has left virtually nothing on Secretary-General Hassan's plate. Hassan told Al-Ahram Weekly that he expects the "hasty" decision to be reconsidered. "It failed to delineate between the secretary-general's role, and those of the four deputies," he said. "Not amending it may lead the party into a chaotic situation."
The secretary-general also made a point of stressing, however, that everything was under control, and that there was no crisis within the party's ranks.
Hamed Mahmoud, meanwhile, described Dawoud's decree in far more positive terms. "It was illogical to leave everything in the hands of the secretary- general. Roles should have been better distributed between him and the deputies," he said.
