Al-Ahram Weekly | Labour Party | Islamism's melting pot

Continuing a series on the political parties contesting the November general elections, Amira Howeidy traces the roots of the Labour Party, chronicles its switch to an Islamist ideology, interviews its leader, Ibrahim Shukri, and sounds out political experts on the party's performance

Islamism's melting pot

The original name of your party was the Socialist Labour Party but the word "socialist" was dropped, and the party has been closely associated with the Islamist trend since it forged an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987. Why the switch from socialism to Islamism?

When I thought of establishing a new political party in 1978, I felt that the most appropriate name would be Hizb Al-'Amal [translated labour or action], meaning a party of action. I wanted to call it the Islamic Labour Party but realised that this would be illegal because the formation of parties on religious foundations was prohibited. The closest thing that I could think of was the Socialist Labour Party which is close to the name of the party [the Misr Socialist Party] that I headed before 1953.

But our programme included Islamic precepts, even before we adopted our current position. It laid a stress on the fear of God and the importance of holding onto religion, without necessarily mentioning the word "Islam". Our programme also stated that Islamic shari'a should be the main source of legislation - a provision which Sadat included in the constitution. And we supported the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1950s when they were having problems with President Gamal Abdel-Nasser. So, our Islamic orientation is not exactly new.

Why, then, did the Labour Party not ally itself with the Brotherhood before the 1987 elections?

This would have been a beautiful thing, but it was out of our hands. The fact is that with the establishment of the New Wafd Party, many Brotherhood members, like Salah Abdou Ismail, Mohamed Abdel-Qoddous and Sheikh Abdel-Ghaffar Aziz, felt that it would be wise for the Brotherhood to ally itself with the Wafd in the 1948 elections. But when they got to parliament, it was we, and not the Wafd, who supported their position on the necessity of applying shari'a.

In 1987, I thought it would be best if all the opposition parties formed an alliance and ran on the Wafd's electoral slate. At first, both the Wafd and the other parties agreed. But a week later, the Wafd's higher committee announced that there would be no coalition. On the same day, I was contacted by the leaders of the Brotherhood and the Liberal Party, who suggested that we form a tripartite coalition, running on the Labour ticket. We came up with a joint platform under the motto "Islam is the solution".

It was the use of the slate system in the 1987 elections that led to the tripartite alliance. With the individual candidacy system in operation for this election, why do leaders of the coalition parties continue to insist it is still functioning when it clearly is not?

Of course, there is a difference between the scope of the coalition formed during the 1987 election, and what is happening at present. Now we can say that we are coordinating the choice of candidates and constituencies. Both the Brotherhood and the Liberals are coordinating with us, but plans have not been finalised yet because many Brotherhood members who were planning to run for election have been arrested. So, we are still working on it.

But in view of the arrest of the Brotherhood members and the ambiguous position taken by the Liberals, how can it be said that the Islamic Alliance is still alive?

We are not obliged to run on the same slate or present a joint platform. But I do call for coordination, as we have had in the past.

I should point out that the 1987 elections was not the only time that members of the Islamic Alliance have worked together. There was coordination in the 1989 Shura Council elections and the local council elections of 1992.

I believe that coordination should be enlarged to include other parties. This has been achieved with the Nasserists and we are talking with the Wafd in order to coordinate in some constituencies. I expect that there will be run-off elections in many constituencies and a higher degree of coordination will be needed then.

The Islamisation of the Labour Party has caused divisions within party ranks, with some members expressing disapproval. How do you view this?

We are proud that all our policies are presented to the party's general congress or supreme committee, although it takes time and effort. But, in the end, the majority of members agree with the party's line.

Some observers believe that Labour will not achieve the success it did in 1987 because it is running separately from the Brotherhood. What are your expectations?

I don't agree. I believe that Labour and the other opposition parties have some hope, although the media is being used to propagate the "achievements" of the ruling party. But most of the people's problems have not been solved. It is impossible to live decently on the present average income. Cases of corruption are everywhere and there is talk of land and cement "mafias".

What's more, we have been living under emergency law for 15 years now, something which has never happened in any other country in the world. I am not saying that it will be easy to achieve the results we want. However, the issue here is not the degree of the people's response but the integrity of the elections. How can there be a clean election in the absence of guarantees? All we can do is insist on the implementation of the guarantees currently included in the election law.

In short, if the government gives us clean elections, then we have hope. But if it maneuvers to come up with results serving the interests of NDP candidates, then this is a different situation.

Does this mean that you oppose the idea of inviting international observers to monitor the elections as the party's secretary-general, Adel Hussein, suggested?

Inviting international observers will not amount to much more than the symbolic monitoring of some constituencies in Cairo by a handful of NGOs. It would not achieve anything. Would they go to Upper Egypt? Of course not.

All we want is adherence to the constitution. This is in the interest of both the people and the government itself. The NDP does not have to achieve a 90 per cent victory. No harm would befall them if they achieved 60 per cent. This would be to the credit of President Mubarak.

It has been noted that Labour and the Nasserists are coordinating quietly, unlike other parties. Is this a prelude to a future alliance?

We were Nasserists even before Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Nasser was a member of the Young Egypt Party and many of his actions after the revolution were originally Young Egypt ideas. These range from small things like digging up the statue of Ramses II, to great achievements such as the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company in 1956.

		Al-Ahram Weekly Issue 244 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875