Dashed hopes and a sit-in marked the would-be Al-Ghad Party's failure to get a ruling from the Political Parties Court. Mona El-Nahhas reports On Sunday the Political Parties Court decided to postpone until November its final ruling on whether or not to legitimise the Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) Party. The delay comes as a result of procedural issues at the Political Parties Court itself. An affiliate of the Supreme Administrative Court, the court is authorised to hear political party appeals. It is composed of eight counsellors and eight "public figures", appointed by the justice minister, according to Article 8 of the political parties law. On Saturday, the court was unable to rule because not all of its members were present. Although the eight counsellors were there, three of the eight "public figures" were not. Attempts to summon them were in vain. The same scenario took place on Sunday, and as a result the ruling was postponed until November. As the counsellors spent nearly 30 minutes discussing ways of containing the critical situation, the media and members of the would- be party waited anxiously. For two days the court's corridors were crowded with party members holding orange flags with the party's name emblazoned on them. Another group of angry members gathered in the street in front of the court building, raising the same orange banners. (The party's founders said they chose orange to symbolise the sunrise of a new morning). At 1pm, the door to the counsellors' room opened; party members pushed their way inside, defying security. Upon discovering the ruling had been delayed, their anxiety immediately became distress. "God is our only resort," many kept saying. Mursi El-Sheikh, former Wafdist and a leading party member, was angry about the inclusion -- and subsequent nonappearance -- of public figures. Having "public figures" be part of the court harms the image and dignity of the judiciary," he said. According to Mohamed Farid Hassanein, a former Wafdist MP who resigned from the People's Assembly last year, the majority of the court's "public figures" are members of the ruling National Democratic Party. "This is nothing but a tightly-planned conspiracy by the ruling NDP to hinder the foundation of a strong new party," Hassanein told Al-Ahram Weekly. Their deliberate absence came as a result of orders not to attend, which they got at the NDP conference." Al-Ghad Party's programme -- weighing in at 2,000 pages -- was submitted to the Shura Council's Political Parties Committee for the first time in July 2003. Authorised to license new parties, the committee rejected Al-Ghad on the grounds that its programme was too similar to those of currently existing parties. The committee's decision was contested before the Political Parties Court. When the State Council's advisory body recommended that the party be licensed since "it is a new and distinguished addition to Egypt's political life," would-be party members thought official legitimisation would be right around the corner. MP and Al-Ghad Party founder Ayman Nour, speaking to reporters following Sunday's court ruling, said "what happened today is clear evidence that the reform they speak of is nothing but hollow words." He said he and the party's 10,000 members would continue their peaceful political struggle until Al-Ghad sees the light. The postponement until next November, Nour said, meant that, "instead of getting a final ruling, we will repeat the case proceedings again, since the court's membership will be reshuffled in October." Hundreds of the party's core members staged a sit-in outside the Supreme Administrative Court following the ruling. Sitting on the floor in a big circle, holding each other's hands, they shouted out slogans condemning the NDP and the regime. A press conference was held at the party's temporary headquarters in downtown's Talaat Harb Square. The party said it would hold weekly conferences and rallies in every Egyptian governorate to publicise its programme. Al-Ghad, according to its founders, combines the liberalism of the right with the social leanings of the left. According to Mona Makram Ebeid, a former Wafdist and secretary-general of the would-be party, Al-Ghad calls for democratic reform, with an emphasis on secularism and promoting women's empowerment. Although roughly a quarter of the party's founders are former Wafdists who quit that party over differences with its leader Noman Gomaa, Al-Ghad bears no similarity to the Wafd Party, Nour (who was dismissed from the Wafd Party three years ago) said. Al-Ghad's main concern, as voiced by its founders, is combating poverty and solving the average citizen's problems. Political reform is another of its major targets, and the party has already drafted a new constitution to replace the one currently in use. The 200- article draft mandates a parliamentary state and drastically limits the authorities of the president. The party plans a campaign to collect one million signatures in support of its ideas. Hassanein said the party's concentration on internal issues was a matter of being "realistic. How can we help Palestinians and Iraqis, when we ourselves are so weak? We should help ourselves and feel bad about our own problems first."
