Sideline politics
The late President Sadat's nephew wants to run for president as the Liberal Party's candidate. Which Liberal Party? Wonders
Mona El-Nahhas
Late President Anwar El-Sadat's nephew Talaat El-Sadat, an MP, has announced his intention to run against President Hosni Mubarak in next September's presidential elections, the first such multi- candidate contest in Egypt's history. Although El-Sadat, who made his announcement last Thursday, claimed to be the Liberal Party nominee, party chairman Helmi Salem told Al-Ahram Weekly that El-Sadat has no legal right to represent the party, either as a member of parliament or as a presidential candidate, since his membership was stripped during the party's general congress last December.
The fracas is typical of the miniscule Liberal Party, which has been mired in internal disputes for seven years. The December congress spoken of by Salem is a prime case in point. With 13 leading party officials fighting over the chairman's post since party founder Mustafa Kamel Murad passed away in 1998, many, like Salem, have chosen to hold their own general congress, gathering supporters together and announcing themselves as the party's sole legitimate chairman.
The results of these conferences were duly submitted to the Political Parties Committee, a governmental body mandated with the approval and legal registration of parties. Prior to Salem's last effort, these requests were duly ignored.
El-Sadat said Salem used his connections with the committee's chairman Safwat El-Sherif and the Interior Ministry to "seize the party's chairmanship". He said the committee had stood on the sidelines for years as the party dealt with its internal issues. "Then, just a few days after Salem held his congress, they were suddenly in a hurry to solve the party's problems and recognise Salem as the chairman. Isn't that rather strange?"
El-Sadat also insisted that he was still a leading party member. "Salem's decision to dismiss me and all of his other rivals no longer has any legal ground," now that an administrative court has ruled against the parties committee decree naming Salem as chairman, he said. The court said the committee has no legal authority to settle power struggles within political parties. El-Sadat and three other chairman's post competitors, Selim Azzouz, Mohamed Farid Zakareya and Leila Abdel-Salam, filed the case.
Salem said the court ruling had no bearing on his post as party chairman. "The court ruling merely annulled the committee's decree. But it wasn't the decree that made me party chairman. It was the general will of the party's members."
Sources close to the party said that Salem himself planned to run for president. El-Sadat's nomination will be much more complicated if Salem decides to run, since the new presidential elections law allows political parties to nominate just one top party official as a candidate. "I haven't made a final decision," Salem told the Weekly. But in any case, "El-Sadat has no choice but to run as an independent."
El-Sadat chose the memorial cenotaph of the Unknown Soldier in Nasr City, where late president Sadat is burried, as the venue for his announcement. The issues topping his campaign platform, he told the gathering, included abolishing emergency laws, releasing political detainees and combating corruption.
Admitting that his nationwide popular support base was currently weak, El-Sadat said he was banking on people's frustration and longing for change.
Other El-Sadat family members were not pleased. The late president's daughter Roqayya El-Sadat was quoted in the press saying she "would not allow anybody to manipulate her father's name for political or financial gains".
El-Sadat's idea for ending his party's woes involves holding a major general congress with all the chairman's post competitors and party members, who would then elect just one chairman. Dismissing the suggestion, Salem argued that the power struggle had already been settled -- in his favour.
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