Events inside the Egyptian Social Democratic Party sparked controversy last night, Friday, after news circulated on Facebook that Egyptian police forces had stormed the extraordinary general conference, as party members who spoke to us called it, and arrested four of its members, before security decided to release one of those arrested and hold the other three, to be brought before the prosecution this morning, Saturday.
Under the party’s rules, the extraordinary general conference is held without being called by the party chairman. A number of members took this step after the elections for the party chairmanship, the political bureau, the higher committee and the new party leadership were postponed for several months without a date being set for the ordinary general conference, which was supposed to be launched last May, with preparations under way since December 2023.
Arrests
Mona Abdel Rady, the women’s secretary of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, recounts the details of the call and preparations for the extraordinary general conference, the security forces’ subsequent storming of the venue, and the arrest of some members. She says: “The ordinary general conference was supposed to be called according to the bylaws last June at the latest, to elect the party’s new leadership, including the post of party chairman and the higher committee, but this did not happen. We were surprised that more than four thousand new members had joined the party, which raised suspicion and concern among members and led a number of them to announce a sit-in last May.”
She explains to Zawia3 that over the past few months, a number of party members supporting Mahmoud Samy, head of the parliamentary body in the Senate, as party chairman instead of Farid Zahran, were expelled, and others were threatened with expulsion. She points out that the call for the urgent conference was in line with the bylaws, which allow it in the event of corruption or wrong decisions by the party’s leadership; in this case, one third of the higher committee is entitled to call an urgent conference to withdraw confidence from the current leadership and call for the election of a new one, which is what happened.
The party’s women’s secretary continued: “The first time, the quorum was not met because 75% of the general assembly did not attend, as required by the bylaws. For the general assembly’s quorum to be met the second time, 50% of those entitled to vote and elect must attend within the two hours set for this, and 30% in the third hour, which is what actually happened yesterday, Friday.”
Abdel Rady explains that they tried to book a hall to hold the conference in downtown Cairo, but were surprised when hall owners refused to rent to them because of a letter sent to them, signed by party chairman Farid Zahran, warning them against dealing with or renting to this group, on the pretext that the group had broken away from the party and that allowing the conference to be held could result in “disturbing public peace and security and harming the public interest”, which led the hall owners to refuse.
She continues: “We managed to rent a wedding hall in the Maryoutiya district of Giza Governorate, and after members finished registering and the legal quorum was announced, a security force stormed the hall, without any assault, asked us to disperse and leave urgently, cut off the electricity and water and closed the iron gate.” She points out that security informed them that the hall owner had filed a report against them alleging they had stormed the hall and assaulted its workers, which, she stresses, did not happen before or during the conference.
Abdel Rady recounts what happened to them next: “We tried to leave the hall and were surprised by four microbuses in front of the hall’s door. Then four members were arrested, three of whom remained in custody, and they asked about another member named ‘Hossam’, who was one of those responsible for communications and for booking the venue, and who had recently been expelled from the party.”
For his part, Hossam El-Azraq, the expelled party member about whom the security forces asked, says he escaped the attempt to arrest him thanks to colleagues who intervened, defended him and kept security away from him, but three others were arrested and detained without cause or any crime committed, other than that the party’s leaders, who claim to belong to the opposition, decided to exploit their powers and relationships to thwart the conference, despite denying any connection to what happened.
El-Azraq points to a picture that the party’s secretary-general, Bassem Kamel, posted on his personal page on a social media site, showing him celebrating half an hour after the police raid.
A number of members of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party in particular, and political activists in general, attacked the party’s secretary-general, Bassem Kamel, on Facebook after a picture of him celebrating spread without any clarification or comment, which some considered a celebration of the events at the general conference that led to the arrest of three members.
Zawia3 tried to contact Bassem Kamel, the party’s secretary-general, by phone and by text message via WhatsApp, to comment on the incident and what is being said about him, but he had not responded by the time this report was published. We also tried to contact Farid Zahran, the party chairman and former presidential candidate, to respond to the allegations about the letter sent to wedding halls warning against renting to party members and accusing them of disturbing public peace and harming the public interest, but he did not respond.
Demands
Ahmed Fawzy, a human rights lawyer and member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, denounces the arrest of three party members, describing what happened and the state of affairs within the party as “regrettable”. He demands their swift release, regardless of the reasons for their arrest, of whether the conference was in line with the bylaws or not, and of the reasons for the dispute in the party, stressing that he will provide the necessary legal support for them to regain their freedom and to save them from the spiral of pretrial detention, which is what matters to him now.
He explains to Zawia3 the reasons for the split within the party and how things have turned out, saying this is the result of the absence of political practice and the long closure of the public sphere in Egypt, in addition to citizens’ lack of interest in joining parties and the difficulty of founding new ones. All this, as he puts it, has been reflected in the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, changing its composition and igniting internal disputes.
In the same context, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights denounced the arrest of three members of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, pointing out in a statement that these measures contradict individuals’ fundamental rights and the freedom of organisation and expression.
The Center demanded the immediate release of the detained members and a guarantee of their legal rights, including their right to defend themselves, announcing that a team of lawyers, including the Center’s lawyers, would go to the Shubramant Prosecution today, Saturday, to follow the case and attend the interrogation of those arrested.
Internal Disputes
A party source, who preferred not to be named for fear of prosecution, explains that Farid Zahran was elected chairman of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party in 2016, and his term was supposed to end after only two years, according to the party’s bylaws, which state that “the electoral term is two years, and a member may run for two terms”. According to the party member, the general conference was not held during the past period due to the state of restriction and the deteriorating security situation in Egypt.
The party member adds: “The situation continued until 2022, and this period was counted as one electoral term. Then Zahran was re-elected for a new term at the party’s 2022 general conference, with his term ending last May, so he has no right to run for a third term, which upset Zahran and those loyal to him.”
He continues: Zahran cited the exhaustion he and his campaign team suffered because of the presidential election, which led him to ask the higher committee to postpone the party’s internal elections, and the request was indeed approved in violation of the bylaws, since under the bylaws only the general conference, not the higher committee, is entitled to approve postponing elections. Following the decision, party members split between supporters and opponents of Zahran remaining.
The party member continues: “The higher committee met two or three times during the past period to take some decisions and measures, including expelling members opposed to Zahran and warning others of expulsion. Meanwhile, new memberships were allowed in, reaching about 4,300 members in two months.” Zahran justified this by saying these memberships had been collected during his election campaign.
The source points out that the party’s membership reached nearly four thousand members over the years since its founding, of whom 950 are members of the general conference entitled to elect and vote, and 200 are active cadres who attend meetings and engage seriously, asking: “How did Zahran convince more than 4,300 new members to join the party during his election campaign, which lasted only a few weeks, when we have hundreds whom Zahran failed to convince to re-engage in the party?”
He continues that the crisis is not only the new memberships and their large number, but also the higher committee’s desire to add them to the general assembly and grant them the right to elect and vote, which changes the shape of the voting bloc within the party, without them passing through the “cadre school” as has been customary. He points out that some of the new members at the centre of the dispute were members of pro-government parties and the dissolved National Democratic Party (responsibility for this information lies with the party member, as we were unable to verify whether new members originally belonging to pro-government parties or the dissolved National Party had joined).
Article 27 of the internal bylaws of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party stipulates that the party chairman calls the general conference to hold elections for leadership seats, including the party chairmanship, one or two months before the end of his term, which Zahran did not do. This pushed the opposition bloc within the party, at various political levels, including MP Samira El-Gazzar, Senators Mahmoud Samy and Hanna Gerges, 11 governorate secretaries and others, to call for an extraordinary general conference after collecting approval signatures from about one third of the higher committee’s members, as nearly 46 of its 132 members signed, in line with the bylaws, according to the party member.
The source explains that the conference had previously been postponed because the quorum was not met the first time, and it was completed yesterday, Friday, with more than a third of the members attending, about 350, and before it was broken up, the assembly agreed on a single demand: the annulment of all the higher committee’s decisions since December 2023.
Another source inside the Egyptian Social Democratic Party spoke to us, stressing that the current conflict revolves only around the party’s leadership and has nothing to do with political affairs. He points out that the conflict is between the current chairman, whose term has expired, Farid Zahran, and Senator Mahmoud Samy, who wants to run for the party chairmanship.
He stresses that there are attempts to heal the rift and the division that resulted from the internal crisis and the conflict over the party’s leadership, and attempts to hold the internal elections as soon as possible, with no final date set so far.
These events resemble what happened inside the Constitution Party, leaving the two parties, which were represented as opposition parties within the Egyptian Civil Movement, a subject of continuing controversy, and presenting a picture suggesting that democracy has not found its way into the parties that have always raised its banner. The question remains open: when will the Egyptian opposition put its house in order?
