In the past few days, the Egyptian Civil Democratic Movement has threatened several times to freeze the activity of its parties if security violations continue, following the arrest of Yahia Hussein Abdel Hadi, one of the movement’s founders.
The Civil Movement comprises twelve opposition political parties, ten of them active: the Constitution Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance, Bread and Freedom, Karama, the Egyptian Communist Party, the Conservatives, the Arab Democratic Nasserist Party, the National Accord Party, the Egyptian Socialist Party and the Reform and Development Party. A number of public figures also take part in the alliance. Meanwhile, the Justice Party and the Egyptian Social Democratic Party have kept their activity within the movement frozen since the presidential election, without reversing that decision so far.
The dispute between the ten parties on the one hand and the Justice and Egyptian Social Democratic parties on the other dates back to the presidential election, when the two parties decided to freeze their membership in the movement after the head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, Farid Zahran, ran as a candidate in the election, which most of the Civil Movement’s leaders rejected.
Zawia3 covered the Civil Movement’s divisions in its report “We Agreed to Disagree… Behind the Scenes of the Egyptian Opposition’s Splits“, which expected that the movement’s situation would change after the presidential election and that the Justice and Egyptian Social Democratic parties would keep their membership frozen in preparation for the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2025, which may see a new alliance between the two parties and pro-government parties, as happened in the 2020 elections.
At a meeting of the Civil Movement’s board of trustees on 29 July, the movement decided “to stress its principled position of committing not to take part in any electoral alliance run by the authorities, their agencies or the parties loyal to them, and to seek to form a broad civil democratic alliance from within the movement”. The Reform and Development Party expressed reservations about the decision until matters related to the law and the drawing of constituencies become clear, while the Constitution Party called for postponing the announcement of the decision until after holding dialogue and consultation sessions with young people of the civil current and party youth in the governorates.
On the evening of 31 July, Abdel Hadi was abducted by unknown persons while riding in a car with Abdel Galil Mostafa, the former coordinator of the National Association for Change, on their way to the Dokki district to attend an event at the Karama Party. While the car was stopped in traffic, Abdel Galil was surprised by a number of people in civilian clothes, who forcibly took Abdel Hadi out of the car and abducted him to an unknown place, according to human rights lawyer Khaled Ali.
Hours later, it became clear that the abduction had been carried out by security forces, and Abdel Hadi later appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, where he was remanded in custody for 15 days in Case No. 3916 of 2024, State Security. The prosecution charged him with joining a terrorist group, misusing social media, broadcasting and publishing rumours and false news, committing the crime of financing terrorism, and inciting a terrorist crime. During the interrogation, he was confronted with his article “How Long Will the Army Remain Silent“, which he published on his personal Facebook page. The Civil Movement considered this incident a negative signal aimed at intimidation that contradicts claims of political openness.
Decisions to Freeze Parties: A Reaction to the Authorities’ Attacks
Egypt has seen decisions to freeze political work and suspend party activity in protest at the mounting political pressure following the security campaign that came after 2013. Among the most prominent of these was the decision of the Strong Egypt Party to freeze its party and political activity after the arrest of the party’s head, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, and his deputy Mohamed El-Kassas in February 2018. The “Ghad El-Thawra” Party also decided in January 2021 to freeze its activity inside Egypt and move to work from abroad, because of what it described as the lack of “possibility of political work” inside the country.
Egypt has more than 85 political parties, including liberal and leftist parties and others without a clear ideology. Among them are parties belonging to the Civil Movement and others whose activity has noticeably declined, in addition to pro-government parties such as Mostaqbal Misr, the Republican People’s Party and Homat El-Watan.
On the other hand, some political parties in Egypt have threatened to freeze their political activity in response to political pressure and in protest at certain policies. For example, the Wafd Party threatened several times to freeze its activity in protest at the ruling regime’s policies, especially during the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, because of what it considered restrictions on political life and repression of the opposition. Some leftist parties, such as the Karama Party, have also threatened to freeze their activity if political conditions did not improve and more space was not made available to the opposition.
Akram Ismail, a member of the Bread and Freedom Party’s central committee and a leading figure in the Civil Movement, says that talk of parties freezing their political activity is still just a proposal under consultation since Abdel Hadi’s arrest. He explained that the movement will not take this decision as a unified entity, but will invite its parties to hold internal discussions among their members, with each party deciding independently, since the decision must be taken organisationally within each party.
The Bread and Freedom leader added, speaking to Zawia3, that the movement is looking for the appropriate response, including the very usefulness of political work amid the security violations with which the state operates and its arrest of whomever it wants at any time, pointing out that parties freezing their political activity is one of the options raised within the movement when political life is fraught with danger, without any rules or conditions, and security violations reach this level.
After the incident, the Civil Movement said in a statement that the manner of Abdel Hadi’s arrest carries a message of intimidation confirming the meaning of many other messages that have targeted peaceful opponents over past periods, which also included recycling, harassment and placing prominent national figures on terrorism lists, requiring radical changes to the Criminal Procedure Law. It also considered that the negative effects of the climate of prohibition, restriction and confiscation of freedoms extend to everything surrounding the political sphere and weaken confidence in the governing institutions’ respect for the principles of the Constitution and the provisions of the law.
Last April, the Nasr City Misdemeanour Appeals Court upheld a ruling against Abdel Hadi sentencing him to one year in prison, suspended, in Case No. 1206 of 2023, after convicting him on charges of “broadcasting false news abroad and at home” and “spreading terror among citizens”. This was the second such ruling issued against engineer Abdel Hadi, who had previously been sentenced in another publishing case on similar charges. He had been released in June 2022 by presidential pardon following the call for the national dialogue, a month after he was sentenced to four years in prison for deliberately spreading false news at home and abroad, in Case No. 558 of 2021.
The Civil Movement pointed out in its statement that the climate of repression, restriction and confiscation of freedoms feeds opposition parties’ inclination to freeze their party activity as long as the principles of pluralism are suspended, and the Egyptian political system uses the opposition as decoration for an authoritarian one-party rule in a formally pluralistic mould.
Medhat El-Zahed, head of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party and a leading figure in the Civil Movement, agreed with what Ismail said about the mechanism for parties to decide on freezing their political activity, explaining that some parties’ inclination to freeze their activity is still at the consultation stage, not implementation.
El-Zahed stressed, speaking to Zawia3, that policies of restriction and constraint have strengthened the parties’ refusal to be mere decoration in a political system based on absolute hegemony. He explained that these parties see that the political system claims pluralism, although in reality it is a one-party, security-driven, authoritarian system with a formal pluralistic facade.
El-Zahed pointed out that these inclinations are a natural result of what the opposition in Egypt is subjected to, especially amid the growing escalation against the civil current. He added that if parties face restrictions and siege that deprive them of the ability to carry out real activity, they should save those energies.
El-Zahed cited, as evidence of the authorities’ escalation and rejection of genuine political pluralism, what happened to former MP Ahmed Tantawy, who was prevented from entering the presidential race after his supporters were obstructed from issuing endorsements at the Real Estate Registry. When he tried to overcome those obstacles and resorted to popular endorsements, he was accused of forgery and put on trial, leading to a one-year prison sentence, which reflects the absence of any chance for competition under this political system.
El-Zahed also pointed out that there is another view among some of the movement’s parties that sees the need to struggle as much as possible to increase the available space and hold on to the constitutional text stating that the political system is based on multiple parties. He stressed: “We must not give the regime a gift with a freeze decision, enabling it to exercise its power and hegemony easily.”
The term pluralism is used to describe a political system containing a large number of parties, compared with two-party or one-party systems, and it provides an opportunity for voices different from that of the ruler. It helps limit the state’s authoritarianism through the existence of intermediary groups between the people and the authorities, such as political parties, unions and associations, guaranteeing individuals’ freedom and preventing the domination of a single party or the monopoly of power.
Threatening to Freeze Is Not the First Time
Civil Movement leader Medhat El-Zahed explained that the idea of parties freezing their political activity had previously been raised by Farid Zahran, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, even though his party is considered one of those benefiting most from the existing spaces and tries to open up room for political work. It was also raised within the Karama and Socialist Popular Alliance parties on different occasions, and was a strong trend.
In September 2019, the Karama Current Party issued an urgent statement threatening to freeze its party activity in protest at state policies. The party said in its statement that the current scene does not allow any rational path for running the state within a framework of pluralism that preserves the unity of Egyptians in their diversity, and does not allow society’s living forces to interact. The party issued this statement at the same time as the arrest campaigns carried out by the Egyptian authorities in response to calls for protests launched by Egyptian contractor Mohamed Ali, who lives abroad.
It was not only opposition parties that considered freezing as a way out of the grim political reality; this trend also appeared in the Free Current, which threatened on 29 August last year, 2023, to freeze its political activity in protest at the continued detention of publisher and politician Hisham Kassem, who chairs its board of trustees.
Kassem was detained based on a complaint filed by Civil Movement leader and former labour minister Kamal Abu Eita, accusing him of insult and defamation. After appearing for questioning, Kassem refused to pay bail set by the investigating authorities at EGP 5,000. In a later development, the Egyptian Public Prosecution added a new complaint from a public official against the head of the Free Current’s board of trustees, and he was sentenced to six months in prison, a term that ended last February.
Threatening to Freeze Between Political and Legal Impact
Article (5) of the Egyptian Constitution, as amended in 2019, states that the political system is based on political and party pluralism, the peaceful transfer of power, the separation and balance of powers, the inseparability of responsibility and authority, and respect for human rights and freedoms, as set out in the Constitution.
Commenting on the political impact of freezing party activity, Akram Ismail, a leading figure in the Bread and Freedom Party, said freezing party activity is not merely an embarrassment to the regime, but an expression of the parties’ extreme frustration with the security environment, which makes political opposition extremely dangerous and risky, with limited usefulness.
Ismail added: “Regardless of the impact of this decision on the political system or the current authorities, as it strips them of any ability to claim the existence of active parties and political pluralism, freezing party activity is a genuine and authentic expression of the opposition’s situation and its reading of reality.”
Medhat El-Zahed believes the Egyptian regime benefits from the current situation, claiming the existence of a sham party pluralism subject to the regime’s control that achieves what it wants. El-Zahed stressed that the ruling establishment prefers the status quo, adding: “I do not think the regime welcomes parties freezing their activity, but there may be parties within the regime’s circle that do not care about this decision because there are other entities that achieve what the regime wants.”
For her part, human rights lawyer Fatma Serag, head of the legal aid unit at the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, said that some parties resorting to freezing their political activity may have more political than legal impact. She explained that Cairo has loyalist parties that will not follow the opposition parties’ path, adding: “These parties already exist, which fulfils the principle of pluralism stipulated by the Constitution in its fifth article, which includes all parties, whether loyalist or opposition. Politically, however, opposition parties freezing their activity expresses their disobedience to the existing political system, which reflects negatively on the image Egypt is trying to market abroad regarding its respect for party and political pluralism and human rights.”
Rejecting Blackmail and No Return to the National Dialogue
Akram Ismail denied that the detention of Yahia Abdel Hadi was an attempt by the political system to blackmail the Civil Movement into abandoning its position of boycotting the national dialogue. He explained that Abdel Hadi’s detention was punishment for his firm positions and his constant expression of them, pointing to the current authorities’ annoyance at the articles and posts of Abdel Hadi and other opponents who refuse to remain silent about the continuation of current economic and political policies.
For his part, Medhat El-Zahed also stressed that the Civil Movement has no intention of returning to the national dialogue. He explained that the movement did not reject dialogue in principle, as it took part in it for a long time and prepared all the papers submitted to the various committees, but the failure to implement any of the recommendations or outcomes made the dialogue useless, noting that the movement has settled its position not to continue the dialogue sessions unless the recommendations of the first round are implemented.
El-Zahed described what is happening as “political absurdity”, pointing out that the authorities have been talking for years about amendments to laws such as the electoral system and pretrial detention, with the aim of normalising political life, without taking real steps.
The Civil Democratic Movement set conditions for resuming its participation in the sessions of the second phase of the national dialogue, which began after President El-Sisi was elected for a third and final term under the current Constitution. These demands include amending the election and pretrial detention laws and releasing political prisoners.
