What does the resignation of the chairman of the Democratic Front Party mean? Mona El-Nahhas seeks answers Last week Ali El-Salmi, one of three deputy chairmen of the newly licensed Democratic Front Party (DFP), submitted his resignation for the third time. This time, though, he said his decision was final. El-Salmi -- a professor of administration and former minister of state for administrative development -- cited the absence of any organised party structure or working agenda as the main reasons for his resignation. El-Salmi had been unhappy for some time with the way the party is administered and its seeming inability to connect with the public. Sources within the DFP reveal that in the past, chairman Yehia El-Gamal had prevailed on El-Salmi not to leave the party. Interviewed on TV satellite channels following his latest resignation, El-Salmi said this time there was no going back. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, El-Gamal said that while El-Salmi's departure was a loss for the party it would soon recover. He denied the possibility that it could lead to splits among the party's rank and file. After being licensed by the Shura Council's Political Parties Committee last May the DFP was greeted by analysts as a potential key player in Egypt's hitherto stagnant political life. "It could bring a breath of fresh air to Egypt's stagnant political arena," leading columnist Salama Ahmed Salama wrote following the foundation of the party. But the optimism surrounding the launch of the party has proved short lived, and as yet it has done little to advance the cause of political reform beyond hold its own internal elections last June. Indeed, the DFP has yet to finalise its internal party statutes, let alone draw up a consistent plan of action. "Beyond holding seminars and issuing statements, the party has as yet done nothing," complains El-Salmi. His resignation has sounded an alarm that the party must move forward if it is ever to achieve its stated goals. El-Gamal concedes the DFP's performance has been lacklustre so far. "But in a country like Egypt," he says, "where freedom is stifled and political parties shackled, things are not that easy." El-Salmi did not, he adds, take the larger picture into account when submitting his resignation. "He is a romantic politician," El-Gamal noted, "and as such will never accept anything but perfection." El-Gamal denied rumours that differences between El-Salmi and the party's first deputy chairman, Osama El-Ghazali Harb, had led to El-Salmi leaving, saying Harb and other senior figures in the party were still hoping to persuade El-Salmi to stay. While admitting that he had been disappointed to read El-Salmi's public criticism of the party following his resignation, El-Gamal insists his former colleague's intentions were good. "But sadly, the road to hell, as you know, is paved with good intentions," he said, voicing fears that El-Salmi's criticisms would allow political opponents scope to try and discredit the fledgling party.
