Al-Ahram Weekly Issue No. 246 9 - 15 November 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Nasserism, 90s style

From 1984 until 1992, Nasserist figures were involved in protracted legal battles to set up a political party that would keep alive the ideology of the late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser - socialism, Arab unity, non-alignment and an anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist stance.

One of those legal battles was led by Kamal Ahmed, who sought to establish a so-called Alliance of the People's Working Forces. Farid Abdel-Karim, a former high official of Nasser's Arab Socialist Union, spearheaded another battle, for the establishment of a 'Nasserist Arab Sociality Party'. Both Ahmed and Abdel-Karim were turned down by the Political Parties Committee - a semi-governmental body responsible for licensing new political parties - as well as the Political Parties Tribunal and other administrative courts to which they took their case.

In 1990, Diaeddin Dawoud, a cabinet minister and a high ASU official under Nasser, was mandated by the would-be founders of the Nassserist Arab Socialist Party to file a fresh application under a new name - the Arab Democratic Nasserist Party. Again the application was turned down by the Political Parties Committee.

Dawoud took the case to the Political Parties Tribunal which ruled in his favour in April 1992.

A party congress was convened and elected Dawoud as party chairman. But Dawoud found himself embroiled in a power struggle with Abdel-Karim, who, charging that the party elections had been rigged, convened another party congress, which dismissed Dawoud from the party's leadership and elected Abdel-Karim in his place. However, the latter's opposition was ineffectual and Dawoud remained the recognised party leader.

The Nasserist Party is also torn by divisions among three generations of its members. The first, known as the May group, includes figures who held leading political and military posts during Nasser's era. They were all put on trial by Sadat in May 1971 and spent between three and 10 years in prison.

The second is the middle generation, which is made up of rank-and-file members of the Arab Socialist Union and its Youth Organisation. The third group is made up of younger people who campaigned for Nasserism as students in the 1970s, and occasionally won control of student unions. Universities continue to supply this group with new recruits.

The younger generation has a negative view of senior party members, while the old guard believes that the younger generation lacks political experience.

"We fought a fierce battle against Sadat, interacting with people in the streets, while they [the old guard] were in prison or exile," said Hamdin Sabahi, a member of the party's political bureau. "What did they do for the movement? Their only qualification is that they were state employees under Nasser, but this doesn't give them legitimacy."

Amin Iskandar, the party's secretary for cultural affairs, added: "I believe it is time for all those declining figures to disappear, leaving the stage for the younger generation."

For his part, Dawoud said: "I don't blame these young people for being ambitious. I only ask them to take a step-by-step approach." And, reasoned Mohamed Fawzi, a former defence minister under Nasser, "We did not prevent anyone from running for election to these high posts, did we?"

Nevertheless, Abdel-Karim believes that the leadership of the party is its weak point. In his view, "There is a need for a strong figure to take over the party leadership."

Although Nasser outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood and sent thousands of its members to jail, some Nasserists, including Abdel-Karim, now advocate closer ties with the Islamists. "Nasser's heritage was not built at the expense of Islam and it does not contradict its teachings," he argued.

For Hamdin Sabahi, Nasserists and Islamists have four areas of agreement. "Both are opposed to American hegemony, Zionism and government corruption and both call for greater freedoms," he said. "As for their differences, they can be dealt with." Dawoud, however, is opposed to cooperation with the Islamists.

The Nasserist Party opposed the re-election of President Hosni Mubarak for a third term in the 1993 national referendum. The party also boycotted last year's National Dialogue Conference because it was chaired by Mustafa Khalil who, as prime minister under Sadat, was one of the architects of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The party remains strongly opposed to normalising relations with Israel.

Platform

The party advocates self-reliance in economic development, a central role for the state, with society maintaining control over resources. Politically, the party is a strong champion of Arab unity and non-alignment. Egypt should not be subservient to any foreign power but should maintain independence.

The party's platform also rejects what it calls 'American hegemony' over the United Nations and recommends that ways of

fighting this hegemony should be sought.

It emphasises Egypt's leading role in the Arab-African Islamic sphere and urges opposition to what it calls the hegemony of the oil-rich countries on the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

The platform describes the Arab-Israeli conflict as a conflict between the Arab people, on the one hand, and Zionism and American imperialism, on the other.

Membership

According to party sources, membership stood at around 50,000, when the party was first established in 1992, but swelled to 150,000 in the space of a few months. At present they claim a membership of around 200,000.

Funding

According to the Central Auditing Agency, the party is one of the most affluent, financing its activity by interest accruing from an LE1.85 million bank deposit. The money is registered as loans from top party officials such as Hamed Mahmoud (LE500,000), Mohamed Fayeq (LE350,000) and Dawoud (LE100,000).

To this should be added an annual LE100,000 subsidy from the Shura Council, membership fees and the LE1,00 paid annually by each Nasserist member of the People's Assembly.

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