CAIRO: National Democratic Party (NDP) MPs voted against Al-Wafd party's request to withdraw confidence from the government after the investigations committee of the People s Assembly (PA) implicated the government in the Al-Salam 98 ferry disaster. The ferry sank two years ago on its way from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, leaving 1,033 passengers dead. In Sunday's PA session, 267 members voted against the withdrawal of confidence request while 92 members voted for it. Not a single opposition voice voted against the withdrawal of confidence. All of the opposition parties voted for it, Sobhy Saleh, PA member affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood told The Daily Star Egypt. However, NDP MP Mohamed Khalil Kwaitah told The Daily Star Egypt that he supported Al-Wafd Party s request to withdraw confidence from the government and find the government responsible for the crisis. Kwaitah praised the investigations committee report and blames both the government and Mamdouh Ismail, the owner and operator of Al-Salam Ferries Company for the crisis. On the other hand, Saleh expressed surprise at the duality of the NDP's actions. Although the PA investigations committee which condemned the Ministry of Transport, the Marine Safety institution, the Egyptian rescue unit and Ismail was dominated by NDP members, they all voted against the withdrawal of confidence. The ferry crisis does not only require a withdrawal of confidence from the government, the incident deserves an interpellation of a government implicated in a murder crime, Saleh added. What the government committed in that crisis goes way beyond a normal case of neglect. More than a thousand Egyptians were killed, Saleh said. Saleh added that Ismail is only a front of the Egyptian government. Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, told The Daily Star Egypt that there is clear collaboration between the government and Ismail. The PA s vote, he said, is an insult to the memory of more than 1,000 Egyptians who lost their lives in the crisis. But those Egyptians were poor and unimportant, and that is why the government didn't care about them, Eid said. The vote is the last file in the Al-Salam 98 ferry case but, according to Eid, there will always be a big question mark around Ismail s connections with the NDP. However, Kwaitah said that the public prosecutor's office will still proceed with its investigation. Saleh indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood group was the first to ask for a withdrawal of confidence since the crisis took place. The PA's investigations committee report, which took two years to compile, was only introduced to the PA two weeks ago. Prior to that, the only action taken in the ferry case, according to Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper, was that Ismail handed out compensation of LE 300,000 to the families of the dead or missing, and another LE 50,000 to the survivors of the tragic event to deter them from filing a lawsuit against him.
