CAIRO – With a few weeks remaining before the first post-Revolution parliamentary elections take place, political parties and democratic alliances appear to be raucously crumbling. On the other side of the battleground, Mubarak lobbyists, who mostly belong to the disgraced National Democratic Party, are challenging their former rivals so as to seize the largest number of parliamentary seats allocated to independent candidates. An air of uncertainty is overwhelming both classic and newly-born political parties over the forthcoming election battle, which hit the headlines, after the liberal Al-Wafd, which used to be a heavyweight opposition party, sought to welcome its former foes (Mubarak lobbyists) to feature conspicuously on its list of candidates. Al-Wafd's controversial decision compelled several of its leading members to resign. They included Ibrahim Saleh, assistant to the party's chairman; and Mohamed el-Umda, who was an Al-Wafd MP in former parliaments. The leading positions given to Mubarak lobbyists on Al-Wafd's list of candidates also prompted several resignations in its offices in North Sinai, Beheira in the Delta and Assiut in Upper Egypt. Sources inside the embattled party have claimed that it was these people's popularity in their respective constituencies, which had led Al-Wafd to broker a deal with them. It is known that a large number of Mubarak lobbyists, locally branded as stooges, are threatened with compulsory withdrawal from election race as soon as the pending Treason Law is passed by the military council (the de facto ruler of Egypt in the absence of an elected president). The bill, which has stirred up strong opposition from its would-be victims, purses members of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP), who allegedly corrupted political life in Egypt during Mubarak's 30-year regime. Ousted president Hosni Mubarak had been the NDP chairman until he was toppled by the January 25 Revolution. Prior to extending invitation to former NDP members to come forward and broker an election deal, Al-Wafd divorced itself from the so-called Alliance of Political Parties, which, in addition to the heavyweight Muslim Brotherhood, included about 30 novice and veteran political parties. In common with Al-Wafd, 16 members of Al-Hurriya (Freedom) party have submitted their resignations in protest at the nomination of Mubarak lobbyists on the party's list of candidates. There are echoes across at the Al-Masriyeen Al-Ahrar (the Free Egyptians) Party, which was founded after the revolution by the Coptic tycoon Naguib Sawiris. About 750 members in the Sawiris' party have walked away to express their resentment over the party's arrangements in connection with the leading names in its list of candidates.
