The Al-Wafd Party, Egypt’s oldest political party, has announced the final expulsion of nine of its prominent members over internal issues and disputes.
MP Solaiman Wahdan, who is also head of the party’s parliamentary committee, said that the removal of the nine members was met with great support from the party’s General Assembly.
In a phone call on Tuesday evening to the “90 minutes” programme broadcast on the Al Mehwar TV channel, Wahdan said that the expelled members were trying to distort the party’s identity. He added that they have also been seeking to betray it over the past two years and more.
He said that after the party’s president notified Parliament Speaker Hanafi Gebali of the dismissals, their membership with the Parliament would be dropped, as stipulated by law. He also stressed that many Al-Wafd Party members have praised the dismissals.
The decision was announced by the party’s Chairperson, Bahaa Eddin Abu Shoka, at a press conference on Tuesday, which took place at the party headquarters in Giza. It took place in the presence of a number of party leaders.
Abu Shoka accused the expelled members of participating in what he called a “great conspiracy” against the Al-Wafd Party, in a bid to “take control of the party’s organisations and to marginalise its chairperson”.
He said the members, whom he described as “plotters”, were planning to hold a meeting of the party’s High Committee on Saturday, on the pretext of discussing the party’s financial situation. They in fact had the intention of preparing a vote of no confidence, in order to unseat the party’s Secretary-General and diminish the role of the party’s Chairperson.
The list of those expelled includes Yasser Al-Hudaybi, the party’s Vice-Chairperson and a Senate member, as well as Mohamed Abdel-Alleem Dawoud, a member of both the party’s High Committee and the House of the Representatives, among others.
This will affect the membership at Egypt’s two parliamentary chambers, because any change in the party status, under which the parliament members were elected, could lead to the revocation of the parliamentary membership.
According to the House of Representatives and Senate bylaws, membership could be revoked by a decision issued by a two-thirds majority of both bodies’ members. This is subject to the members’ party’s affiliation registered during the nomination phase, before voting, having changed.
