Businessman and media mogul Al-Sayed Al-Badawi was elected as the new leader of Egypt’s opposition Wafd Party in an internal election on 30 January.
Al-Badawi, a member of the party’s Higher Council, will replace Abdel-Sanad Yamama, a Senate member and leader of the Wafd since 2022. Now aged 76, he will hold the post until 2030.
The election was held at the headquarters of the Wafd in Giza’s Dokki district.
The judicial committee in charge of supervising the vote said the ballot was held between 9am and 5pm in an environment marked by transparency, with Al-Badawi and his only rival Hani Serrieddin, another businessman and head of the Senate’s Financial and Economic Affairs Committee, competing against each other.
According to the official results, a total of 2,614 ballots were cast. Of these, 2,596 were deemed valid, while 18 were invalidated, the committee said in a statement.
It announced that Al-Badawi had defeated Serrieddin by a razor-edge margin of just eight votes. The final tally recorded 1,302 votes for Al-Badawi and 1,294 for Serrieddin. The election was limited to the two candidates after a series of withdrawals, the last of which was hours before the start of the voting on 30 January.
Al-Badawi held the presidency of the Wafd Party for two consecutive terms from 2010 to 2018, a period that coincided with the 25 January Revolution in 2011. In the wake of this, the Wafd participated in the 100-member committee entrusted with drafting a new constitution before withdrawing and supporting the establishment of the National Salvation Front in opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood regime between 2012 and 2013.
Al-Badawi joined the Wafd in 1983 and rose through its ranks, becoming secretary-general in 2,000 and a member of the party’s Higher Council in 2006.
He is a politician and businessman who previously headed the Pharmaceuticals Division of the Federation of Egyptian Industries. He is the owner of Sigma Pharmaceutical Industries and formerly owned the Al-Hayat satellite channel network. He was born in 1950 and graduated from Alexandria University’s Faculty of Pharmacy in 1973.
On the eve of the elections, supporters of the Wafd were surprised by the announcement of party member Hamdi Quta that he was withdrawing from the vote in protest against what he described as “organisational flaws” that he said could negatively affect the fairness of the electoral process.
Quta was not the first to withdraw. Five candidates voluntarily left the scene from mid-January, most notably lawyer Bahaaeddin Abu Shoka, the Wafd’s leader between 2018 and 2022, who also attributed his decision to “administrative and organisational flaws”.
Mohamed Abdel-Alim Dawoud, a Wafd MP, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the large number of withdrawals had contributed to increasing the intensity of the elections and polarised the mood among party members.
“This is a healthy and democratic phenomenon that should characterise the internal elections of all Egyptian political parties,” said Dawoud.
Despite the intensity of the competition, a friendly atmosphere prevailed between the two candidates. Dawoud was keen to announce his support for Al-Badawi, while prominent Wafdist politician Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour merely called on the party’s General Assembly members to choose “the one most capable of revitalising the Wafd’s performance and uniting its ranks”.
The Wafd election came after the party’s poor performance in the recent parliamentary elections. It won only nine seats in the House of Representatives, seven of them through the Unified National List for Egypt, a joint list, and two through the individual system.
The results, according to many political analysts, were a big setback for the Wafd and a retreat from its historical role. In the 2020 parliamentary elections, the party won 25 seats.
The Wafd Party was founded in 1918 under the leadership of nationalist politician Saad Zaghloul, and it led the national movement until the 23 July Revolution in 1952 which ended its role by dissolving the country’s political parties.
It returned to political life in 1978 after a decision by late president Anwar Al-Sadat, and it remains one of Egypt’s oldest liberal-oriented parties.
Up until the moment the voting for leader started, the candidates focused on presenting plans to restore the party’s presence on the political scene, in the light of harsh criticism of the four-year term of former party president Yamama.
This, they said, had been a period of decline at the parliamentary level and in the country as a whole.
Ikram Badreddin, a professor of political science at Cairo University, believes that challenges lie ahead for the Wafd. “The real challenge is not related to who won the elections, but rather to the party’s ability to lead a new phase that expands its parliamentary representation and restores its presence in the political arena,” he said.
From a broader perspective, Badreddin hopes that the Wafd elections will be a step towards reviving the public role of Egyptian parties and democratising their internal systems.
“There is no question that Egypt has been passing through a period of political stagnation since 2014 and that this has negatively impacted the performance of all the political parties, including the Wafd,” Badreddin said, indicating that “most of the political parties also suffer from severe financial strains that make it highly difficult for them to survive.”
Al-Badawi held a meeting with Wafd officials on Sunday, during which he discussed the agenda of the next stage and the party’s vision for the coming period.
He explained that the main goal at the present stage is for the Wafd to return strongly to the political scene after an absence of about eight years.
“I want to emphasise that the Wafd should return as a strong opposition party because without this it will sink into oblivion,” he said, adding that “I have an apology to make to the Egyptian people for the party’s shortcomings over the past few years, but I pledge that the next phase will focus on rebuilding the party, restoring public trust, containing internal divisions, and reviving its leading role in the political arena.”
Al-Badawi said national unity represents one of the fundamental values and principles of the Wafd, also stressing the need for Copts to join the party’s Higher Council and various committees and for the preparation of more younger members as the leaders of the future.
Al-Ahram political analyst Amr Al-Shobaki agreed that a difficult job lies ahead for Al-Badawi.
“He has to revitalise the Wafd’s leadership and redefine its role in an increasingly complex political landscape,” Al-Shobaki said, adding that “the vote was a test of competing visions for reform, organisational renewal, and political engagement over the coming few years.”
According to Al-Shobaki, most Egyptian political parties are “pre-fabricated” since despite their prestige their presence on the ground can remain negligible.
The Wafd, however, is different, he said.
“Despite the internal problems and the numerous flaws that plague most political parties, the Wafd has continued to offer a model unseen in recent years in any other party and which we hope that other parties will follow in the shape of the competition and democratic rivalry for leadership between two individuals,” he concluded.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 February, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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