The Tamarod campaign, which led the 30 June protests against Mohamed Morsi, is wracked with internal divisions over the new constitution and the controversial protest law. Last week a group of campaign members held a press conference at which they announced that seven of the movement's leaders had violated Tamarod's “revolutionary and political framework”. The seven are Mahmoud Badr and Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, representatives of the campaign at the 50-member constitutional committee, Mohamed Heikal, Khaled Al-Qadi, Mai Wahba and the campaign's two spokesmen Hassan Shahin and Mohamed Nabawi. “These seven members have transformed the Tamarod campaign into a political movement without the consent of the owners of the campaign, who are 22 million Egyptian people,” said Ahmed Badie, Tamarod's head of public action. Badie announced that Mohamed Awad, head of Tamarod's Nile Delta division, will replace Badr as general coordinator of the campaign until internal elections are held to elect new leaders. Islam Hammam, a member of Tamarod's Central Committee, accused Badr and Abdel-Aziz of using the campaign to further their own political ambitions. “Some of the group's leaders recently announced that Tamarod will field candidates in the coming parliamentary elections and have spoken in favour of army chief Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi running for president. They did this without consulting the Central Committee or anyone else in Tamarod,” says Hammam. Central Committee member Hassan Gharib apologised on the campaign's behalf “for its mistakes”, and asked “the Egyptian people to contact Tamarod to help decide the campaign's future”. Nabawi, one of the seven leaders named at the press conference, denied all allegations, insisting the “movement is working to serve the goals of the 30 June Revolution”. “We are happy that our movement is a key player in the transition authority and can help make sure that people's demands are met,” he said. Nabawi stressed that the group had opposed some of the interim government's policies, including the protest law. He also called for the dismissal of Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim following police use of “excessive force in dealing with anti-government protesters”. Tamarod, which was established in April, succeeded in collecting 22 million signatures of Egyptians opposed to Mohamed Morsi and Brotherhood rule. Its leaders were later invited by the military to help develop a roadmap for transition. In September two of the group's leaders were asked by interim president Adli Mansour to join the 50-member committee which finished drafting a new constitution last Saturday. Last week was not the first sign of divisions within the campaign's ranks. In the last two months members of the group's Sohag and Beni Sweif offices resigned in protest at what they said was the marginalisation of provincial members. Senior campaign members told Al-Ahram Weekly current differences are as much about the future identity of the group as its political stances. They identify two camps within Tamarod, one that seeks to keep the group as a popular campaign pushing for the goals of the 30 June Revolution, and a second that seeks a formal political role and wants to use the campaign's grassroots support to elect members to the next parliament. “As a political movement we want to achieve the goals of the 30 June and 25 January revolutions. One of the main ways to do so is to contest parliamentary elections and reach positions that will enable Tamarod to have a say in future legislation,” argues Abdel-Aziz. He concedes that the transition from “being an opposition campaign to becoming a political movement” has yet to gain the support of all Tamarod's members.
