New Wafd Party

The New Wafd Party ( German " New Delegation Party "; Arab حزب الوفد الجديد, DMG Hizb al - Wafd al - Ǧadīd; abbreviation HWJ ) is a nationally liberal and center-right oriented political party in Egypt. Their motto is " rights over the power of the people over the government."

The chairman of the New Wafd is as- Sayyid al - Badawi after he won the internal elections on May 28, 2010, compared Mahmoud Abaza, for its part, in 2006, Party Chairman, succeeding Numan Gumaa was. Monir Fakhri Abdel Nour is its current Secretary General. The party today released the newspaper al- Wafd.

History

The New Wafd Party is the successor of one of the oldest and historically most active political parties in Egypt, the Wafd Party, founded in 1919, which was destroyed after the revolution of 1952. It was re-founded in 1977 under the presidency of Nobel Peace Anwar Sadat in 1983 and received its current name. The New Wafd Party follows almost exactly the same line as the formerly aristocratic Wafd Party during Egypt's liberal experiment in the 1920s.

In the parliamentary and presidential elections in November and December 2005, the party won only 6 out of a total of 454 seats in the National Assembly, and its presidential candidate Numan Gumaa received only 2.9% of the total votes cast for the President.

After the revolution in Egypt in 2011, the party entered the electoral bloc temporarily at Democratic Alliance for Egypt, which is however dominated by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and its political Freedom and Justice Party. In the course of the party leader al - Badawi called on 28 January 2011, a transitional government in Egypt and called for new elections and a constitutional amendment.

Policy objectives

The New Wafd Party assigns itself as the ideological center between the main historical traditions of Arab socialism and private capitalism. She criticized the promotion of private foreign investment by the government and justifies a more balanced approach to the relations between the private and the public sectors.

The party urges officially on political, economic and social reforms, to promote democracy, respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights and the preservation of national unity. It also calls for the abolition of the emergency legislation, to solve the unemployment and housing problems, the expansion of health care and the development of the education system.

Relation to Islamism

Already in 1984 formed the New - Wafd Party before the general election an alliance with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. The results were disappointing because they received only 15 % of the vote.

On 13 June 2011, the party announced a new alliance ( the Democratic Alliance for Egypt) with the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in to 2011/2012 to introduce a partial list of candidates for the parliamentary elections in Egypt. Executive members of the New Wafd criticized the cooperation of the secular party with the radical Islamists. The Wafd came before the provision of the party lists again from the Democratic Alliance.

Lately operate some representatives of the New Wafd Party also by Islamists widespread stereotypes and conspiracy theories. So rejected in an interview with The Washington Times on July 2011, the Vice - Chairman of the New Wafd Party, Ahmed Ezz el- Arab, the Holocaust as a "lie", and the diary of Anne Frank as a " forgery ". Furthermore, he claimed that the attacks of 11 September in reality by the Mossad, the CIA and the "military- industrial complex " of America have been committed, and that Osama bin Laden an " American agent " is.

Party leadership

• Numan Gumaa, former party leader and presidential candidate in 2005
• Monir Fakhri Abdel Nour, a long time serving Coptic MP, politician and current vice - chairman of the party

• Fuad Pasha Seraggeddin 1983-2000
• Numan Gumaa 2000-2008 (2010)
• As- Sayyid al - Badawi 2010