Labour's labyrinth
Ibrahim Shukri may have been named Labour Party leader by the Supreme Administrative Court this week, but the frozen party's legal battles are far from over. Mona El-Nahhas reports
Ibrahim Shukri
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On Saturday, the Supreme Administrative Court named Ibrahim Shukri the legitimate leader of the frozen Labour Party. At the same time, the court chose to refer both the matter of the party's suspension, and the banning of its mouthpiece, Al-Shaab to the Political Parties Court.
By naming Shukri as the party's legitimate leader, the court quashed an appeal by the political parties committee against a July 2000 administrative court ruling recognising Shukri as the Labour chairman. The committee had not only contested Shukri's leadership, but also refrained from recognising the other party members who had battled for the party chairmanship post -- Hamdi Ahmed, Ahmed Idris, Ashraf Abdella and Mohamed Abdel-Moneim.
The party was frozen and its mouthpiece Al- Shaab banned by the political parties committee -- a body affiliated to the Shura Council -- in May 2000, as a result of the struggle over the party's chairmanship. Saturday's court ruling said that the committee had exceeded its legal limits by refusing to recognise any of the five competitors as chairman. The issue of party leadership, the court said, is an internal affair which should be determined only by party members.
Although party members spoken to by Al- Ahram Weekly were satisfied by the court's ruling "ending the power struggle issue", they were disappointed by the second part of the ruling, which overturned a September 2001 administrative court decision to allow the publication of Al-Shaab. The Supreme Administrative Court said on Saturday that these kinds of lawsuits were not within the administrative court's jurisdiction. The case will now be heard instead by the Political Parties Court.
The issue of the party being frozen will also be heard by the Political Parties Court, with the first hearing set to start on Saturday.
While Ibrahim Shukri refused to comment on the matter, Abdel-Hamid Barakat, the party's deputy secretary-general told the Weekly that even though the court had finally legitimised Shukri's leadership, it had simultaneously extended the party's legal troubles. "We will be going through yet another new labyrinth of legal procedures, which will lead to nothing but the party's clinical death," he said.
Talaat Rumeih, editor-in-chief of the banned Al-Shaab, said the only way out of the party's current crisis would be a political decision to revive the party. "Judicial rulings will not be very helpful," he said.
Magdi Hussein, the party's secretary-general who replaced his uncle Adel Hussein after the latter's death in 2001, said that "the state was aiming to kill the Labour Party by prolonging the litigation period." Hussein does not seem optimistic about the matter being resolved, especially because of the late 2001 memorandum submitted to the political parties court by the political parties committee calling for the party to be dissolved and its license terminated.
That memorandum was submitted after Shukri failed "to implement the terms of the secret deal that had been reached with the government," Hussein said. Shukri, he said, was unable to eliminate the Islamist presence within the party, nor restore its original socialist line. Confronted by a strong Islamist front, Shukri was forced to acquiesce to the party's executive committee appointment of Islamist member Talaat Rumeih as Al-Shaab's chief editor.
Shukri was also forced to go back on a September 2001 decision to freeze the membership of 11 leading Islamist members, headed by Magdi Hussein. In fact, getting rid of Hussein, who was sentenced to two years imprisonment and fined LE20,000 for libeling Deputy Prime Minister Youssef Wali on the pages of Al-Shaab, was the main condition set forth for restoring the party's legality. With Shukri unable to win his confrontation with the party's Islamist members, any hope of a reconciliation between the party and the government was lost.
According to Hussein, party members have not recognised the political parties committee decision to freeze the party, and Labour's activities have been ongoing since May 2000. Party meetings are held regularly, and Al-Shaab can still be seen on the Internet. Party members are active in many platforms, especially professional syndicates. "During the Bar Association's last elections, party member Youssef Gamal managed to become the syndicate treasurer," Hussein said.
