Nasserists did not have much to celebrate on the 52nd anniversary of the July Revolution, reports Mona El-Nahhas While Nasserist lawyers held a rally at the Bar Association's headquarters on 22 July to celebrate the 23 July Revolution's 52nd anniversary, other party members chose the next day to hold a separate commemoration, involving a visit to President Gamal Abdel- Nasser's grave, where floral wreathes were laid and written wishes engraved. The party also held rallies in Cairo and other governorates over the next few days. At the rallies, participants debated the revolution's achievements, arguing that its principles had been "totally altered". The deteriorating conditions in Iraq and Palestine, and the weak Arab response to them, was also a much-discussed topic. Many maligned Egypt's dwindling regional role, and the need for comprehensive political reform. With the party's membership dwindling by the day, however, reforming the party itself did not come up. Several of the party's most prominent members have recently quit. One, MP Hamdeen Sabahi, has been trying to gain approval for a new party called Al-Karama. Party leader Diaaeddin Dawoud tried to stem the tide of departures by forming the Nasserists' Unification Committee, but even that effort appeared to have failed. Dawoud himself dissolved the committee two weeks ago, without even informing the committee members, said committee chairman Wafaa Hegazi. The dissolution decision coincided with the completion of a long-awaited position paper that took the committee three years to prepare. The document was up for discussion anyway on Saturday at a meeting at the Press Syndicate's downtown headquarters. Several Arab Nasserists from Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Yemen and Sudan were in attendance. According to Hegazi, the document suggested ways of unifying the different Egyptian and Arab Nasserist groups. It also outlined a Nasserist stance towards current Arab events. The meeting -- which featured much shouting, and several walkouts -- broke up in disagreement over the document. Many of those in attendance saw it as an attempt to create an organisational structure parallel to the party itself, a claim Hegazi denied. The party itself was officially boycotting what it called an "illegal" meeting. Party deputy chairman Hamed Mahmoud told Al- Ahram Weekly that it made no sense to attend the meeting since the committee had already been dissolved. Committee member Ahmed El-Sawi said it was unfortunate that "disputes with party officials were the main obstacle standing in the way" of the committee's three-year effort to "unify the Nasserists and restore the party's influential role in the Arab world". He said the "problems started when we asked party officials to ensure that elections would be supervised by a neutral Nasserist committee in order to guarantee democratic and fair results. Our request was turned down, and elections took place in 2002, despite our recommendations. The result," he said, "was the current structure, where un- qualified people seized most of the party's leading posts."
