Post-party hangover

The struggle over the leadership of the Wafd has placed the spotlight squarely on the implosion of official opposition parties, writes Amira Howeidy

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"Is this a Wafdist Intifada to be followed by others or death stalking political parties?" asked the shocked headline of Hassan Nafaa's widely-read article in Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper on Sunday.

Nafaa, a seasoned political scientist and prolific columnist, was echoing the question on everyone's lips as last week's sensational coup against Wafd Party Chairman Noaman Gomaa continued to make front pages headlines in the press.

While the Wafd crisis continues to unravel in the courts, threats and accusations are being hurled between the "reformers" within the party, who say they sacked Gomaa for his "dictatorial" style, and Gomaa himself, who has accused his critics of receiving foreign funding. In the meantime pundits have been busy explaining why it is that Egypt's political parties appear to be in their death throes.

Ayman Nour, who stood against President Hosni Mubarak in last September's presidential elections, is now in prison serving a five-year sentence for falsifying Ghad Party membership applications while the party itself split immediately before the November parliamentary elections in a dispute that has yet to be resolved by a court order. As things stand, there are effectively two Ghad parties.

The Nasserist Party, which would have been completely forgotten were it not for its fiery mouthpiece Al-Araby, is suffering a similar, and possibly terminal, decline. Al-Araby 's two editors, Abdel-Halim Qandil and Abdallah El-Sennawi, are leaving the paper and their departure is likely to signal an end to Al-Araby 's fearless opposition to the regime.

Their decision to leave was quickly followed by the resignation of Ahmed Yassin Nassar, a prominent figure within the Nasserist Party, in protest against the party's poor showing in the elections and its increasing alienation from the street.

The left-wing Tagammu Party, after winning only two seats in November's elections, has been embroiled in a series of internal debates comprising mostly scathing self-criticism. According to Abdel-Ghaffar Shokr, a leading figure within the party, Tagammu's central committee is attempting to save what it can from the situation by imposing a six-month time frame for the party to improve its performance. "If that doesn't work the central committee will meet and we might consider a change in leadership," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.

But according to a source in the party's central committee, who asked for his name to be withheld, the chances of the party salvaging anything is virtually nil. "The party is like a dead corpse," he said.

The Tagammu, Wafd and Ghad were the only legal parties to make it to parliament, between them winning just nine of the 444 contested seats. The Nasserists scored zero while the Muslim Brotherhood and other officially unrecognised political groups such as the as yet unlicensed Al-Karama made advances despite their illegal status.

Even Kifaya, the anti-Mubarak opposition movement which did not contest the elections, has attracted more attention than the official opposition parties, and a far bigger street following, despite having been formed only a year ago.

"The traditional parties have lost their ability to lead the street," Al-Karama's Hamdeen Sabahi, a popular pan-Arab politician and MP, told the Weekly, "and now the bet is on alternative movements." While until recently the Ghad might have reasonably expected to attract the support of liberals, and Al-Wassat the support of Islamists, the crisis in the Ghad, and the remarkable success of the Muslim Brotherhood, has dashed such hopes. This means, Sabahi concluded, that his own unlicensed party Al-Karama is alone in being able to capitalise on the current situation. It has, he said, already attracted "many" from the Nasserist Party, with Al-Araby 's departing editor Qandil among the new recruits.

Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo, echoed Sabahi's analysis.

"There are new movements that espouse principles similar to the traditional parties but which performed much better than them in the presidential and parliamentary elections," he said. Many of the legal parties, El-Sayed added, "will face major challenges if their leaders decide to maintain the status quo."

"Something has obviously gone very wrong in our political system," said Tagammu's Shokr, "when illegal groups outperform legal parties, and it is a situation we must address."

For Kifaya spokesman George Ishak it is no coincidence that the two party leaders who ran against Mubarak in the "flawed" presidential elections despite a majority opposition boycott have now been punished. "One is in prison and the other has been kicked out of his party in the most humiliating manner," he told the Weekly. "The political spectrum is changing and the currents that are transforming politics in this country are also drawing the curtain on the traditional parties."

Given the polarisation of politics that followed the NDP-MB takeover of parliament new movements are bound to create new realities, though what direction they will take is far from clear. In the meantime the Wafd, Egypt's oldest and most venerable opposition party, continues to slug it out in a fierce leadership battle over its "liberal" values.