In a desperate attempt to retain his position, the Wafd's former chairman hired armed thugs to storm the party's headquarters, writes Shaden Shehab The ongoing power struggle within the Wafd Party reached a climax on Saturday when armed thugs stormed the party's headquarters in Doqqi in an extraordinary attempt to restore deposed chairman Noaman Gomaa. The elegant villa that houses the offices of the party was left in tatters following a battle that lasted for 10 hours and which left 28 people, the majority journalists working in Al-Wafd, injured. Gomaa arrived at the Doqqi building early Saturday morning, accompanied by a handful of supporters and almost 60 gun-toting, knife- wielding thugs. By 9am they had welded the gates of the villa shut to prevent party members and journalists from Al-Wafd from entering the building. Those already inside the party's offices were attacked by Gomaa's hired thugs, who also set fire to parts of the building. Informed of the situation by their besieged colleagues, more than 500 party members converged on the villa and eventually managed to re-open the gates. Despite being met by Molotov cocktails and gunshots they eventually succeeded in entering the building and surrounded the locked office in which Gomaa was hiding. Only then did the police intervene to escort Gomaa to an armoured police vehicle. Seventy-one year-old Gomaa, a former dean of the Faculty of Law at Cairo University and for six years chairman of the Wafd, was subsequently remanded in police custody for 45 days pending investigation. He faces charges of intimidation, instigating a riot, using unlicensed weapons with intent to kill and criminal damage to property. Following the extraordinary scenes Wafdist MP Mohamed Sherdy described the former chairman as a man willing to do anything, including sacrificing his reputation and party, to cling on to his position. He has, however, failed in that task. On Monday the Political Parties Committee -- an affiliate of the Shura Council -- which had repeatedly refrained from interfering in what it said were internal party matters, finally recognised Mustafa El-Tawil as the Wafd Party chairman, basing its decision on a 29 March court ruling acknowledging the legitimacy of the general assembly that elected El-Tawil. "What happened at the Wafd Party underlines the state of chaos and the reversion to the law of the jungle that characterises life in Egypt today," said leading commentator Fahmy Howeidy. "It is a result of decades of dictatorship and a bankrupt political system. It is also an indication that change will happen by force rather than through legal channels." The saga began when Gomaa was ousted as chairman by self-styled reformers on the party's High Committee on 18 January, in a coup led by his then deputy Mahmoud Abaza. The committee cited Gomaa's "disgraceful" showing in the presidential elections and the party's poor performance in the parliamentary elections when it won only six seats as the reasons for his dismissal. His dictatorial style, they said, had alienated public support. Gomaa responded by questioning the legality of his opponents' actions and denouncing them as US agents. Gomaa was replaced temporarily by Abaza until the Wafd's general assembly elected Mustafa El-Tawil as chairman on 2 March. Abaza did not nominate himself in last month's elections, though he is widely expected to stand, and win, when new elections are held in June. Gomaa responded to the new situation by filing a complaint with the prosecutor-general, and was assumed to have scored at least a partial victory when the prosecutor-general ruled that he be allowed to enter the party's headquarters to continue his job as chairman, a decision the reformers appealed and, last Thursday, lost. Mohamed Abdu, a Gomaa supporter and onetime acting assistant secretary-general, said Gomaa "only went to execute the court ruling". "The state -- as represented by the Political Parties Committee and the prosecutor-general's decisions -- fanned an already explosive situation," said political analyst Amr Hashim Rabie. "The state cannot pretend it is simply an observer of such matters when its control over the formation of political parties and the establishment of newspapers is absolute." "And why," asks Howeidy, "when a crime was taking place did the police stand by watching?" Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour, Wafd deputy chairman and one of the leaders of the party's reformist wing, said "there were about 50 policemen watching and all they did was phone for ambulances as they looked idly on as Gomaa and his thugs fired their guns." The Coptic businessman and former MP speculated that such inaction might have been a result of an "understanding" reached between Gomaa and the security forces. "Perhaps there was encouragement from government officials. Gomaa did, after all, have a long meeting with Shura Council and Higher Press Council Chairman Safwat El-Sherif two days before the siege." Abdel-Nour suspects "Gomaa was given a green light to seize the Wafd headquarters. He would not have embarked on such a foolish act without thinking he could get away with it." Howeidy went further, speculating that "the power struggle between Gomaa and reformers within the Wafd reflects ongoing struggles within the government." "While Gomaa might have been supported by the security apparatus the reformers probably enjoyed the backing of the NDP's Policies Committee" which would explain, argues Howeidy, the vague and contradictory way in which the state handled the matter. The regime is keen to show that there are no real political parties in Egypt, says Rabie who doubts that it is a coincidence that both of President Hosni Mubarak's opponents in the presidential elections are now behind bars. Other political parties, including the leftist Tagammu and the Nasserist, are also being torn apart by internal disputes the result of which, argues Rabie, will make it easier for Gamal Mubarak, in the absence of any other credible candidate, to become the next president. With Gomaa now out of the way Abdel-Nour and other reformers are optimistic about the future of the party, though they admit the challenges they face are great. The Wafd, he says, now has to "salvage its reputation and attract new members" and will do so by offering "true liberalism and social justice and suggesting solutions to the many problems plaguing ordinary citizens -- things that the ruling NDP or the banned Muslim Brotherhood do not offer".
