CAIRO: Head of Al-Ghad party Ehab El-Khouly angered party members on Friday's general assembly by failing to respond to People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour's renewed accusations against former president of Al-Ghad Ayman Nour. According to local press reports, during a recent visit to Washington Sorour had once again confirmed accusations that Nour had forged documents to establish the party, branding him a "criminal and his wife and deputy party leader Gamila Ismail "a cheat. El-Khouly's apparent reluctance to respond with any affirmative action left party members, who remain fiercely devoted to Nour, clearly frustrated. However, he told Daily News Egypt after the event that "this is not a new case that deserves a response, it's been going on for years now and I didn't even know exactly what [Sorour] said. I'd like to add that I've been active on Nour's legal team since the beginning of the case. As for Sorour's comments that Nour was receiving too much media coverage, Wael Nawwara, head of the party's directorial committee, said "this just goes to show that it is a true cause; when you present a true cause it propagates faster. It is laughable, he continued, that a regime which has a monopoly on the media can then try to accuse one party of influencing world opinion. In what was the third annual Ghad party political conference, leading members reaffirmed the party program, in particular marking out their stance towards the "banned Muslim Brotherhood, who announced their party program in 2007. "We see the Muslim Brotherhood agenda as very dangerous indeed. In all 128 pages of their program they did not once mention Egyptian identity, only that the basis of identity is Islam. They want to assassinate the civil state, making it a religious state, said El-Khouly. However, party leaders accused the Egyptian government of muffling the voice of liberalism in Egyptian society. "The liberal stream is silent by design of a government that tries to make itself the only alternative. Now it has started to realize the danger and threats of religious extremism, Nawwara told Daily News Egypt. With municipal elections looming on the horizon, party leaders are acutely aware of the popularity of the Brotherhood and their own dwindling numbers. A serene but nevertheless unsmiling Gamila Ismail told members, "Our existence is a victory, our meeting here is a victory, and even though our numbers are less, the fact that the head of this party is active although he is behind bars is a victory. Ismail's calm disposition, however, did little to countenance the inevitable fracas that invariably surfaces during Egyptian political party conferences. Mahmoud Fawzy, a party member who had failed to gain a leading position in the party, was preparing stonewalled El-Khouly for an answer to whether he would be completing a full year as party leader. El-Khouly replied that, as promised, he will not be staying the full year, opening the way for new elections to take place, upon which Fawzy was restrained by fellow members.
