|
Egypt The Opposition Parties
The once monolithic Egyptian political arena gave birth in the
1970s to a rich array of new political parties competing with the
ruling party. While some were a "loyal" opposition and others
closer to counterregime movements, all gave expression to interests
and values different from those of the ruling party.
The tiny Liberal Party was formed in 1976 from a right-wing
sliver of the ASU by an ex-army officer. Grouping landowners and
professionals, it was to the right of the ruling party. Its
ideology combined calls for the selling of the public sector, an
end to subsidies, and unrestricted foreign investment with demands
for further political liberalization and an attempt to mobilize God
and Islam in defense of capitalism. Having little popular appeal,
it operated as an elite pressure group speaking for private
enterprise and generally in support of Sadat's liberalization
policies.
Although also beginning as a faction of the ASU headed by a
left-wing Free Officer, Khalid Muhi ad Din, the National
Progressive Unionist Party (NPUP or Tagamu) evolved into an
authentic opposition party of the left. It brought together, behind
an ideology of nationalist populism, a coalition of Marxist and
Nasserite intellectuals and trade union leaders. It defended the
Nasserite heritage, rejected the alignment with the United States
and the separate peace with Israel, and called for a return to
Egypt's anti-imperialist role. It rejected the infitah as
damaging to national industry and leading to foreign domination,
debt, corruption, and inequality; it called for a return to
development led by the public sector. It had a small but well
organized base of activists.
The Socialist Labor Party (SLP or Amal) was formed in 1979
under Sadat's encouragement to displace the NPUP (which was proving
too critical) as the loyal opposition party of the left. While its
social composition--landlords and professionals--resembled the
Liberal Party, many of its leaders were quite different in
political background, having belonged to the radical nationalist
Young Egypt Party (Misr al Fatat) before 1952. Despite its origin,
the party, alienated by Sadat's separate peace, by the corruption
in his regime, and by the excesses of infitah, soon moved
into opposition, becoming a public sector defender critical of
untrammeled capitalism and Western alignment. The SLP lacked a
large organized base and relied on the personal followings of its
leaders. It and the Liberal Party, in an effort to overcome their
limited popular appeal, joined in 1987 with the Muslim Brotherhood
in the Islamic Alliance under the slogan "Islam is the solution."
The New Wafd Party was a coalition of landowners,
professionals, and merchants, led by a number of prominent leaders
of the original Wafd, notably Fuad Siraj ad Din. It was the voice
of the old aristocracy excluded from power by Nasser and of the
wing of the private bourgeoisie still antagonistic to the state
bourgeoisie that emerged in the shadow of the regime. It also
enjoyed a significant following among the educated middle class.
The party's main plank called for genuine political liberalization,
including competitive election of the president. It demanded
thorough economic liberalization to match political liberalization,
including a radical reduction in the public sector, in state
intervention in the economy, and in barriers to a full opening to
international capitalism. Although it clashed with Sadat over the
legitimacy of the 1952 Revolution, as the economic role of the
state was strengthened under Mubarak, the New Wafd Party came to
speak with a Sadatist slant to the "right" of the ruling NDP.
The Islamic movement was fragmented into a multitude of
autonomous factions that shared the common goal of an Islamic state
but differed in social origin and in tactics. Those that were
willing to work through the system were allowed to organize and
nominate candidates in parliamentary elections. But no Islamic
party, as such, was permitted, and major sections of the movement
remained in intense, often violent conflict with the regime. Thus,
the movement was only partially integrated into the party system.
The mainstream of the movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, was a
coalition led by ulama, merchants, and lower-middle-class student
activists commanding a following in the traditional urban quarters.
It was founded as a radical movement in the 1930s by Hasan al
Banna, was repressed under Nasser, and reemerged in more moderate
form under Sadat. Umar Tilmasani, its main leader in the Sadat era,
was associated with the infitah and its leader thereafter,
Muhammad Hamid Abu an Nasr, was from a wealthy provincial family.
The Brotherhood was split along generational lines among factions
loyal to its various previous leaders. These factions included the
more radical elements loyal to the founder, the conservative
Tilmasani faction, and the parliamentary caucus in the late 1980s
led by Mahmud al Hudaibi, son of the second Supreme Guide, or party
leader. On the Brotherhood's right were wealthy conservatives who
justified capitalism in the language of religion. The more activist
Jamaat al Islamiyah (Islamic Associations), an amorphous movement
of many small groups, were drawn from a cross-section of the
student population, while the most radical Islamic groups, such as
At Takfir wal Hijra (Atonement and Alienation) and Al Jihad (Holy
War), were made up of educated, lower-middle-class elements and
recent urban emigrants from the village
(see Islam
, ch. 2;
Muslim Extremism
, ch. 5). Various populist preachers in the traditional
urban neighborhoods enjoyed broad personal followings. Whereas the
movement was weak among industrial workers and peasants, it was
strongly attractive to more "marginal" elements such as educated,
unemployed, rural migrants and the traditional mass of small
merchants and artisans. All the Islamic groups shared a rejection
of both Marxism and Westernization in the name of an Islamic third
way that accepted private property and profit but sought to contain
their inegalitarian consequences by a moral code and a welfare
state. The main ideological difference between the Islamic groups
centered on the means for reaching an Islamic order; whereas
moderate groups advocated peaceful proselytization, detente with
the regime, and work through established institutions, radical
groups pursued a more activist challenge to the secular order, and
some advocated its violent overthrow.
Data as of December 1990
|
