Party poopers

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Ayman Nour

Ayman Nour is making headlines again. The Al-Ghad Party leader who came second in the 7 September elections is facing a leadership challenge that could threaten to split the one- year-old party.

Many observers, though, see malevolent hands at work in the bid to unseat Nour, drawing comparisons with the Shura Council's move five years ago to close down the Labour Party after it had made one too many criticisms of the regime.

"Al-Ghad's formation did appear a bit rather shady," says Diaa Rashwan, a political expert at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "What on earth would bring people like Mona Makram Ebeid [flamboyant professor of political science, former MP and granddaughter of Makram Ebeid, the renowned Coptic politician] and Ragab Helal Hemeida [street vendor turned successful businessman and a controversial MP previously charged with fraud] together in the same party with Nour? And how was it possible for Al-Ghad to get a license to form a party so easily in the first place?"

Ebeid withdrew from the party in May, citing internal problems. Rafaat Khaled, a deputy vice president of Al-Ghad, and Mahmoud El-Shazli, a member of the People's Assembly, also left the party early this year.

Hemeida was a key player in the fight to lead the Liberal Party following the death of its president in 1998. It was a bout of internecine squabbling that resulted in the party's sequestration.

Hemeida, who went on to become a founding member of Al-Ghad, surprised everyone in May when he attempted to stop the printing of the party newspaper's first issue after Nour had been detained on charges of forging party membership applications.

"The new party contained such contradictory groups that there is no question it was penetrated by the security forces and hence the splits we're seeing today. I have no doubt the regime has something to do with it," says Rashwan.

Nour's trial resumes on 25 September. If he is found guilty he will be disqualified from November's parliamentary elections.

Last week Nour called for a party assembly on 20 September to approve his decision to replace the party's leadership should he be imprisoned. Earlier the party had suspended four leading members, Moussa Mustafa, Mursi El-Sheikh, Ibrahim Saleh and Hemeida, a decision that was ratified on Sunday by Al-Ghad's 45-member High Commission.

It is these four who are attempting to stage the coup against Nour. They filed a claim with the Shura Council claiming that they were Al-Ghad's real leaders, and attempted to obtain a court order to prevent the assembly Nour had called from meeting. The court rejected their request on Monday allowing the assembly which convened on Tuesday and renewed its confidence in Nour. Meanwhile, Nour sent the Shura Council a memo informing it of his party's suspension of the four.

"Nour failed miserably in the elections. We are fed up of his manipulation of the party and its resources," El-Sheikh, who also acted as Nour's lawyer, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "He has tarnished Al-Ghad's reputation and violated the party's bylaws."

El-Sheikh said the four suspended members intended to convene an assembly of party members on 25 September to ratify an alternative leadership to Nour's. On Monday El-Sheikh also filed a complaint against Nour with the prosecutor-general accusing him of financial irregularities.

While Nour downplayed the events, denying any problem, Hisham Qassem, the party's vice president, told Al-Ahram Weekly the four rebels were attempting to lead the party into a "dark tunnel". While conceding Al-Ghad had been mistaken in admitting controversial figures such as Hemeida in the first place, he went on to accuse the authorities of trying to make political capital out of the situation.

Al-Ghad's popularity had increased as a result of Nour's success in the presidential elections, Qassem said, and the party is now issuing new membership applications. And while there is no doubt that recent developments will impact on the party's reputation they will, thinks Rashwan, do so in a way the rebels have not anticipated. "They will draw more sympathy to Nour and might even increase his popularity."