Wafd Party Secretary-General explains the challenges and opportunities facing Egypt's oldest political party in the forthcoming parliamentary elections to Shaden Shehab , 65, joined the Wafd Party when it re-emerged in 1984, his Coptic family having been associated with the party since pre-revolutionary times. His uncle, Saad Fakhri Abdel-Nour, was the party's first secretary-general on its re-emergence. Abdel-Nour became a member of the Wafd Party's Higher Committee in 1996 and then deputy chairman in 2001. Together with former party chairman Mahmoud Abaza, he led the ousting of chairman Noaman Gomaa, and when Abaza became chairman in 2006, Abdel-Nour became secretary-general of the party. He is well known for being both a good negotiator and tolerant of political differences. While Abdel-Nour supported Abaza against present party chairman El-Sayed El-Badawi, he has been able to work closely with all sides of the party in preparation for the forthcoming parliamentary elections. Abdel-Nour was a member of parliament in 2000-2005 for Al-Wayli district. He is running this time in the district of Girga, in the Upper Egypt governorate of Sohag, his birthplace. He has also been a successful banker and businessman, beginning his career with American Express and setting up his own company, Vitrac, a jam manufacturer, in 1980. However, Abdel-Nour quit business life when he became an MP, wanting to avoid any perceived conflict of interest. His educational career displayed a similar mixture. After studying at a French school in Cairo, Abdel-Nour entered Cairo University's Faculty of Economics and Political Science. Later, he obtained an MA degree from the American University in Cairo (AUC), writing a thesis on private investment and economic development. Together with Wafd Party Chairman El-Sayed El-Badawi, you have said that the Wafd is not competing with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in the forthcoming elections, but with the Muslim Brotherhood. Can you elaborate? We have to be realistic. The NDP will win at least two thirds of the seats in the elections and the rest will go to the opposition. We are striving to get the largest possible number of seats for the Wafd out of that remaining third. However, we are not aiming to diminish the contributions of the Muslim Brotherhood. I believe it will win a significant number of seats, while the Wafd could win about 30. The NDP doesn't want the Wafd, or any other opposition party, to win the seats that the Muslim Brotherhood won in the last election. The NDP wants those seats for itself. Yet, observers believe that it is in the NDP's own interests to present Egypt as a strong multi-party democracy, particularly in the international arena? I don't believe this matters to the NDP. The NDP wasn't concerned when it won 99 per cent of the seats in the recent Shura Council elections, or in the recent municipal elections, which returned 99.9 per cent of seats to the NDP. It was not ashamed about those results. Why all the fuss about the parliamentary elections, then, if the results are a foregone conclusion? And why try to restore the Wafd to its former leading place in Egyptian politics? Parties have to take part in the elections in order to satisfy their supporters. You have to give the supporters of any political party something. The Wafd has to have a presence in the country's political life, especially in the important forthcoming elections. Can any opposition party represent a threat to the NDP, when the NDP seems to believe it will be ruling the country for years to come and there is little chance of any change of power? The NDP believes that it will remain the ruling party, but it also believes that this will only be true for a certain period. As long as Hosni Mubarak is president, the NDP is secure. When he is no longer president, no one can predict what will happen. Change will come. Do you believe that Gamal Mubarak is being groomed to be Mubarak's successor in next year's presidential elections? The only thing that is sure is that the NDP's candidate is Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian political parties have little presence in the street, and they are always referred to jointly as "the opposition", meaning that people sometimes have difficulty remembering their names. What would your comment be on the individual profiles of the different parties? This amalgamation of Egypt's political parties is the logic used by the NDP and is the image of things that it likes to present. The NDP's logic is that either you are for it or you are against it. If you are not for it, then you are in the opposition. For the NDP, all opposition parties are the same, regardless of their different views. Hasn't the opposition helped to foster this image by making coalitions or agreements in the name of the opposition as a whole, thereby giving the impression to the man in the street that all the parties are the same and united in their opposition to the NDP? If this is so, it is not the opposition's fault. It is the regime's, which is made up of a unity of party and state. Under the current regime, yes there are other parties, and yes these other parties are part of the political system, but they are always regarded as marginal. What factors decided the choice of Wafd Party candidates for the forthcoming elections? Any candidate of the Wafd has to have a good reputation, some kind of political charisma, and popularity in the constituency in which the candidate is standing. Some candidates have a pretty good chance of winning, or at least putting up a good fight, while others are gaining experience in politics. These latter candidates will gain experience and build popularity in their constituencies as a result of the elections, even if they do not win. The elections will serve as a sort of training for them. Some observers believe that the Wafd will gain the largest number of opposition seats because the NDP wants it to and not because of its own effectiveness or popularity. These observers say that the ruling party does not want the Muslim Brotherhood to retake the seats it took in the last parliamentary elections, and the Wafd could be an ideal replacement for the Brotherhood in the ruling party's view. I don't think this is so. If the Wafd succeeds in securing a greater number of seats in the elections, it will be because of recent gains in its popularity, though the party would probably have been more popular had it not been for the Al-Dostour affair. In addition, a number of the party's candidates are better than those that stood in previous elections. If the Wafd gains seats at the expense of the NDP, it will be because of the NDP's own failures, notably as a result of inflation and the collapse of public services in healthcare, education and transport. People want change because they want their daily problems solved. Do you think the party lost credibility after El-Badawi bought the newspaper Al-Dostour and then fired its editor Ibrahim Eissa, a staunch opponent of the regime? Definitely, although the party had nothing to do with it. However, the mere fact that El-Badawi is chairman of the Wafd and also chairman of Al-Dostour invites the suspicion of a conflict of interest. It was a grave mistake to dismiss Eissa, and El-Badawi admits that. The party is now seen as having toned down Al-Dostour and got rid of its firebrand editor. I understand that this is how many people see things. But there was nothing planned about it: it was a miscalculation on El-Badawi's part, and the party had nothing to do with it. There was a vote among Wafd Party members recently, in which the majority agreed not to boycott the forthcoming elections. However, the Wafd, along with other opposition parties such as the Tagammu, the Nasserist and the Democratic Front parties, has said that there have to be guarantees of free and fair elections. Talk of a boycott re-emerged when Wafd Party advertisements were refused airtime, but the party again decided not to boycott the elections. All of this might seem to be a charade to the ordinary voter. There is no charade, but there has to be a minimum amount of fairness in the elections. We have succeeded in getting two advertisements on air, and the rest will follow during the campaign period. The Higher Elections Committee has also allowed voting by ID card and eliminated the condition that candidates have to prove that they don't have dual nationality. Would the NDP have made these changes if it didn't already want to do so? How far can they be put down to pressure from the Wafd? At least as far as the advertisements are concerned, I was the negotiator on this and the NDP was in a bad position. The Wafd has seen chairman after chairman -- Fouad Serageddin Pasha, then Noaman Gomaa, then Mahmoud Abaza and now El-Sayed El-Badawi -- and there has long been talk of reforming the party. However, not much that has happened has affected the party's image on the street. What makes you optimistic this time around? Reforms took place in 2006 under Abaza, but these reforms have only now come into effect. The party's statutes were amended, and the result was the last elections for the office of chairman. These were praised for their transparency. The Wafd has only really restored its image since El-Badawi became chairman. This is a show. In fact, what we are seeing now came about as a result of Mahmoud Abaza's reforms of the Party. You supported Abaza, not El-Badawi, during the chairmanship elections. Does this say something about your relationship with El-Badawi? I supported Abaza because he was the better candidate, notably because of his political profile and his international exposure. However, El-Badawi is a man of action, and he is attractive to the media. He knows how to get things done. Are you optimistic about the forthcoming elections? It will not be bloody as some say but there will be violence and rigging.
