Mass membership resignations rejected by Egypt's Socialist Popular Alliance Party

SPAP head Abdel-Ghafar Shukr says the central committee has decided to reject the resignations, calls dissenters to a meeting

Egypt's Socialist Popular Alliance Party (SPAP) experiences division, as 280 members, including provincial leaders, submitted their resignation citing internal conflicts.
Those who resigned include; Cairo secretary Akram Ismail, Alexandria secretary Suzan Nada, media spokesperson Mona Ezzat, deputy president for political public affairs Emad Attiya, member of the central committee Elham Eidaros, among others.
In a collective statement outlining their reasons for leaving the party, the resigning-members expressed their dissatisfaction over recent internal elections.
"A group [within the party] carried out an electoral game against all those who oppose it intellectually," the statement said, adding, "Not only that, but it worked to defame its opponents."
The statement went on to claim this has undermined the party's agenda, causing it to "lose a lot of its momentum and many of its effective members."
The resigning-members have criticised the party's failure to formulate a political stance post-30 June, adding that a domineering group has blindly followed the state.
Head of the party, veteran socialist Abdel-Ghafar Shukr, stated that the central committee met on Saturday evening to discuss the resignations and has decided to reject them.
Shukr told Reuter's Aswat Masryia that his party insists on holding on to its members and is "proud of them and their role," adding that amongst those who have resigned are founding members, some of whom he has "known as friends for more than 40 years and holds a lot of respect for."
The party's central committee has called the resigning-members to a meeting during which their views will be discussed in an attempt to reach consensus.
The party has officially supported the interim-roadmap, announced following president Mohamed Morsi's ouster in July amid mass nationwide protests against his rule.
The resigning-members accuse their leaders of opposing any criticism towards police and military trials in the newly drafted constitution, and failure to mobilise concerning democratic and social demands.
The statement added, members who "are not part of [the party's] struggle" have remained in their positions, managing in a way that favours the views of one group over another.
The SPAP was founded immediately following the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, and was the first Egyptian leftist party to be legally recognised after the January 25 Revolution.
On 28 September 2011, the party was officially registered, having met the required quota of 5,000 signatures needed for licensing.
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