Can the Wafd's leadership crisis be resolved before it is too late, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed The crisis that has recently rocked the Wafd Party is an issue of concern not only for its leadership and constituency but for all advocates of democracy in Egypt. The changes we are now witnessing do not affect one specific party only but the whole tissue of the Egyptian nation, and what happened to the Wafd can happen to any other Egyptian opposition party. Indeed, there are signs that this could already be happening. In a previous period, a rebellion against the leadership of a party could be described as a revolutionary act. But now that the word revolutionary has lost much of its cachet, revolutionary slogans have lost their appeal and credibility, and the description "revolutionary" is not necessarily positive. The first question raised by what happened in the Wafd and that is certainly of interest to many Egyptians is whether the removal of its chairman, Noaman Gomaa, was effected in accordance with the party's statues. Actually, once Gomaa quit his office and returned home, this implicitly meant that his opponents in the confrontation had won the day, and that his temporary replacement, Mahmoud Abaza, now spoke in the name of the Wafd as a whole. As the crisis was building up, prominent Wafdist Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour published an article in Al-Masry Al-Youm that could well be described as a manifesto. It was a contribution from a specific point of view to the debate on the issue of democracy, the cornerstone of the reform process now underway. As such, the document does not only address the members of the Wafd Party but all those who aspire to see a genuine multi-party system operating effectively in Egypt. One of the most significant features of the Wafd crisis is that it exploded not only at the leadership level but extended to the rank and file as well. Wafdists marched on Cairo from various parts of the country to help resolve the dispute in the leadership. The masses themselves decided, moved, and acted. In his article, Abdel-Nour says it is ludicrous to blame one individual for the disastrous situation in which we now find ourselves. The real culprit is the system itself, a system so blinded by arrogance that it refuses to admit the failure of its policies. Believing that it alone holds a monopoly on knowledge and experience, it refuses to listen to other opinions and has as a consequence failed to develop itself in line with the requirements of the age. Many of the leaders of this system have remained at their posts for decades, serving different masters and upholding different ideologies, moving smoothly from the era of socialism, the coalition of working people and enmity to imperialism and Zionism to the age of the market economy, globalisation and normalisation of relations with Israel. Because its leaders believe in nothing but the need to cling to political power at any price, because they are ready to strike a deal with the devil to achieve this objective, the system has been unable to deliver on any of its promises. In the concluding part of his article, Abdel-Nour calls on reasonable people of every political persuasion to assume responsibility for the problems plaguing the nation. He begins with the Muslim Brotherhood, calling on them to clarify their position on various issues, most notably the constitution and democracy, because their statements asserting the Brotherhood's respect for civil government within the framework of accepted constitutional principles are in clear contradiction with those defining the aim of the Brotherhood as the establishment of an Islamic republic, i.e. a theocratic state. He also invites them to clarify their attitude towards the Copts, towards the issue of citizenship in an Islamic Republic, towards banking, tourism, culture, the arts and other important areas on which their views are still ambiguous. He then calls on the Copts to break out of their cloistered seclusion behind the walls of their churches, integrate into society and become active participants in public life and the process of political reform. He also advises them to read history, because history repeats itself. According to Abdel-Nour, the early years of the 20th century were not very different from those of the 21st as far as the growing power of political Islam and sectarian tensions are concerned. Finally, he calls on the new leaders of the ruling National Democratic Party to rethink the party strategy and to recognise that their predecessors were wrong to act as though they were alone on the political stage, isolating and marginalising all other civil parties. Since his article was published, the crisis in the Wafd has attained dangerous proportions. The latest twist is the public prosecutor's controversial decision allowing the ousted chairman of the Wafd to forcibly enter the premises of the party. Although the decision has been challenged in a court action filed by interim Wafd Chairman Abaza, until the challenge is heard by the Cairo Summary Court on 7 February, the standoff over the leadership of the party is likely to escalate. It is to be hoped that the parties will exercise restraint and not react in an impulsive manner, whatever the provocation. Irrevocable decisions taken in the heat of the moment can only complicate matters still further.
