Post-mortem blues

The Wafd Party is struggling to come to terms with its poor election showing, Omayma Abdel-Latif reports

---

Noaman Gomaa sees no reason to step down as Wafd Party leader just because he came third in the presidential elections. "I did everything I could have done in a race that I was forced to join at the last minute," he told supporters.

In a press conference on Monday he placed the blame for his party's poor performance squarely on the shoulders of those "fighting the Wafd" -- i.e. the National Democratic Party (NDP). The results, he said, were "fabricated" with the intention of undermining the Wafd's credibility.

"They did not make voting lists public till the last minute, did not count many votes and used every trick in the book to sway the electorate," claimed Gomaa, even though "Mubarak did not need to resort to vote-rigging to win."

His words hold little comfort for those within the Wafd's rank and file still reeling from the shock of the election results. Though Gomaa received a vote of confidence from the party on Sunday, closing the door, at least for now, on any immediate challenge to his leadership, many observers predict that the party is in for a difficult time following the disastrous result. Throughout the week leading party members have been at pains to downplay any suggestion that the party is facing a crisis and the possibility of a split. In private, though, many concede that it will take more than denials to heal the rift that Gomaa's poor performance has opened.

Party sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Weekly there were growing calls among party activists for Gomaa to step down. According to one senior party official "many have threatened to defect and join the Ghad". Should this happen, he continued, "party unity will be seriously undermined".

Party officials may want to put the elections behind them but for many ordinary members of the Wafd a post-mortem is more important than making a show of unity. Why, they want to know, did the Wafd take third place, trailing the Ghad which was itself founded when Ayman Nour defected from the Wafd?

For Wafd member Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour the reason the party failed to connect with the voters is simple: "In times of polarisation people are not willing to listen to moderate voices," he told Al-Ahram Weekly, "and our message avoided sensationalism and empty promises."

Abdel-Nour acknowledges there were many logistical problems standing in the way of a successful campaign, and concedes that 74-year-old Gomaa may have failed to attract younger voters.

"But we did not fail because of our message," Abdel-Nour insists. "On the contrary, our electoral platform was measured and we presented ourselves as the safe alternative to the NDP."

Yet others point to the possibility that many Muslim Brotherhood voters supported Nour rather than Gomaa. In Abdel-Nour's north Cairo constituency of Al-Waily the Ghad Party representatives inside the polling stations were, he says, members of the outlawed group.

One theory gaining ground among Wafdists is that the Brothers were keen to weaken the party.

"They know very well that the Wafd is the only alternative to Mubarak's regime," says leading Wafdist El-Sayed El-Badawi. "It is the only party capable of leading a transition from one party rule to real democracy which is why there was a concerted campaign to marginalise the Wafd."

That campaign, Gomaa believes, was led not by the Muslim Brotherhood but the NDP. Leading NDP figures, he says, are seeking to play the Ghad off against the Wafd.

"Safwat El-Sherif backed Nour in order to use him against us," Gomaa told the daily Al-Masri Al-Youm on Saturday.

Brotherhood sources dismiss accusations that they somehow conspired against the Wafd, and Gomaa himself appeared keen to downplay accusations from within his party that this might have been the case. "Our relationship with the Brotherhood is clear," he said. "The Wafd respects the Brotherhood and acknowledges its political and social weight."

Gomaa was careful not to rule out the possibility of future alliances with the Brotherhood or a unified opposition list of candidates. "We have no objections, in principle, to entering electoral alliances with any political force and we would consider participating in a unified list of candidates."

With crucial parliamentary elections only weeks away attention is already turning towards the possibility of closing opposition ranks.

"We will fight the parliamentary elections with all our strength," Gomaa promised his supporters, "seriously exploring the possibility of electoral alliances and fully backing calls for international observers to monitor the vote."

However great the show of optimism when it comes to the November elections, few within the party feel anything but regret about the precipitous way it rushed into the presidential race. Abdel-Nour, among the leading advocates of Gomaa's candidacy, now believes the strategy was mistaken. The Wafd, he says, joined the presidential race in the hope of redrawing Egypt's political map. "And now it seems that we are back at square one. Everybody is in a dilemma, not just the Wafd. Mubarak has some hard political choices to make."