Two opposition parties -- the Democratic Front and the Tagammu -- are staging elections amid divisions and struggles, reports Mona El-Nahhas Time for change? The Tagammu is requested to reactivate its links with the public Starting yesterday members of the leftist Tagammu Party have been pouring into their party headquarters to attend the sixth general conference and elect the party's leading officials. As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press the election results had yet to be announced, though sources close to the party say that it is unlikely to result in major changes at the top of the Tagammu. Party leader Rifaat El-Said, a runner for the chairman's seat, is accused by a majority of party members, led by his rival Abul-Ezz El-Hariri, of deliberately weakening the party. El-Said is criticised for moving the party closer to the regime and for failing to implement the reforms recommended by the last general conference. "It should not come as any surprise that the Tagammu has failed to connect with the public," says El-Hariri. El-Said, while expressing dissatisfaction with the party's performance, refused to talk about his latest clash with El-Hariri, saying it is an internal affair. Ahead of the vote El-Said had asked the party's disciplinary committee to investigate his deputy, El-Hariri, claiming that he had damaged the image of the Tagammu by his continuous attack on the party. He pressed for El-Hariri to be banned from standing in the elections, alleging that his rival was incapable of partisan work. Asked about his reaction to his own election results, El-Said said he had no problem at all and had long wanted to be free of the burdensome post of the party chairman. El-Hariri is not the only critic of El-Said's running of the party. Several figures within the Tagammu have called on El-Said to pull back from attacking the Muslim Brotherhood, which they say is no more than pandering to the regime and has cost the party public support. Alongside El-Said, Tagammu's Secretary-General Hussein Abdel-Razeq also has critics who accuse him of mismanaging the party. Abdel-Razeq, who was opposed in the elections by Sayed Abdel-Aal, a leading member of the party's central committee, blames the security and political siege imposed upon all opposition forces for the wide gap between the party and the public. "Citizens have opted to abandon political life. Losing any connection with the public is a problem which all opposition parties, not just the Tagammu, face," he said. Abdel-Razeq pledged in his campaign for re- election to reinvigorate the party's interaction with the public. Abdel-Aal, while insisting that the current leadership has achieved a lot, believes that the time has come for a change at the top and for new faces to emerge. Following the election of the party's leading figures, the general conference will be asked to fix the budgets of both the party and its mouthpiece, Al-Ahali newspaper.
