On Monday, Ihab Al-Kharrat, deputy chairman of the opposition Egyptian Socialist Democratic Party (ESDP), said a number of party members had called for an emergency general assembly to elect a new leader. A committee formed by party head Farid Zahran rejected the request on the grounds that it was not supported by a third of general assembly members.

Al-Kharrat reported that the request was supported by 41 of the 152 members of the ESDP’s general assembly members.

Despite the rejection, a group of members convened outside the party’s headquarters on Sunday. Attendees accused Zahran of interfering in the party’s leadership elections in order to remain in office. They issued a statement saying Zahran’s leadership expired in May and it was now necessary to convene the party’s general assembly, hold a congress and begin preparations to elect a new leader, but instead of taking the legally sanctioned steps, Zahran had opted to postpone the congress indefinitely.

Senator and Vice President Mahmoud Sami and member of the party’s higher council Hanna Grace are vying for the ESDP’s leadership.

MP Maha Abdel-Nasser told parliamentary reporters on Sunday that the ESDP is now divided into two camps, one led by Sami and Grace and in favour of electing a new leader as soon as possible, and one in favour of postponing the election until the general assembly holds a congress and reaches a consensus over a candidate.

Those seeking to elect a new leader as soon as possible say that instead of holding a general assembly as scheduled on 6 May, Zahran instead invited more than 4,000 individuals to join the party in an attempt to tighten his control. The anti-Zahran camp accuse him of abandoning the scheduled general assembly without notifying members of party offices in the governorates and of withholding the names of new members.

Divisions in the ESDP emerged in the aftermath of presidential elections earlier this year. Zahran had stood as a candidate, coming third with 1.8 million votes. While political analysts said the poor performance reflected the dwindling popularity of the left-leaning ESDP, many members went on to demand a change in the party’s leadership. They claim that under Zahran ESDP has lost its opposition voice and is behaving more like a pro-government party. They believe the party should be more vocal in criticising the government’s economic policies and in calling for greater democracy, social justice and political freedoms.

ESDP has seven MPs. Since it was formed in March 2011, two months after the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak, it has projected itself as the country’s main leftist opposition party and was one of a handful of political parties to reject the government policy statement delivered to parliament by Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli last month.

While the ESDP’s co-founders included writer Mohamed Abul-Ghar, former minister of international cooperation Ziad Bahaaeddin, professor of constitutional law Mohamed Nour Farahat, film director Dawoud Abdel-Sayed and former prime minister Hazem Al-Beblawi, many of party’s prominent figures from its early days have left.

This is not the first time this year that internal divisions have hit a political party. In early July, leading members of the Wafd Party issued a statement criticising the performance of the party and calling for the election of a new leader.

Tellingly, differences emerged after the Wafd Party leader Abdel-Sanad Yamama stood in December’s presidential elections, securing just 822,000 votes. In the aftermath of the elections the party split into two camps, one led by Yamama and a second comprising high-profile members including former foreign minister Amr Moussa, former industry minister Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour and former Wafd Chairman Mahmoud Abaza.

Al-Ahram political analyst Osama Al-Ghazali Harb expects recent divisions in the Wafd and ESDP to spread to other political parties.

“After losing hope that they will one day reach power parties fall prey to divisions,” says Harb. The only alternative, he argues, is serious political reform and democratisation.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 22 August, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly