Collapsing like a ‘mansion of cards’: Divisions within the Civil Democratic Movement

When the state began to demolish the waterfront mansion of businessman and Conservative Party leader Akmal Kortam a few weeks into May the Civil Democratic Movement, of which his party is a member, rallied to his defense.  But the defense from the coalition of opposition parties did more harm than good.  In defending Kortam, the movement compared the state’s demolition of parts of his mansion to high-profile national disputes over land seizure, like Warraq Island where tens of thousands of people have battled forced evictions to clear the way for real estate development for years.  Criticism poured in immediately over the tone deaf comparison both from inside and outside the coalition. And in response, the movement withdrew its statement at the end of May and apologized. The retreat has done little to contain the fallout. Instead, it exposed new fissures within a coalition that has weathered repeated internal disputes since its founding in 2017.  “The Civil Democratic Movement is finished. It is clinically dead,” Karama Party leader Kamal Abu Eita tells Mada Masr. Others within the movement are less sure whether the movement is beyond saving. But all of the sources who spoke to Mada Masr, including party leaders and members of the movement’s board of trustees, acknowledge that the coalition has deep-rooted structural problems, even as some argue that, despite its shortcomings, it retains political value in the absence of any alternatives in the constrained political scene. What they all agree on is the need for significant changes in the way it conducts politics.  Kortam’s mansion, it appears, could open the door to such changes — or at least to a discussion of them. *** The now-deleted statement framed the demolition as part of a broader pattern of state encroachment on property rights. It grouped the case with disputes over land seizures on Warraq and Qursaya islands and the confiscation of historic endowments properties, describing the demolished mansion as a “residential building.” In the face of the backlash, the movement apologized, saying it had not intended to draw a parallel between Kortam’s case and national controversies such as Warraq or the destruction of historic cemeteries.  “The movement’s primary role, which we believe in and seek to entrench, is to defend the rights and freedoms of Egyptian citizens,” the apology read. “This requires a constant commitment to distinguishing between defending movement figures against violations they may face and addressing major national issues that affect millions of citizens.” The Conservative Party distanced itself from the statement, thanking the movement for its solidarity with its leader while arguing that the dispute involved “a private property, as well as procedures and decisions currently being challenged through legal channels.” To place it alongside broader issues such as housing, displacement, redevelopment and compensation, the party said, did not accurately reflect the nature of the case.  Beyond questions of framing, critics also revived Kortam’s record as owner of Al-Tahrir newspaper, where he faced court rulings over violations of journalists’ rights, a matter that was central to the criticisms of the movement’s statement raised by Journalists Syndicate head Khaled al-Balshy, who is a leading figure in the the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, a founding member of the Civil Democratic Movement. The coalition had already seen a serious internal dispute months earlier surrounding Kortam, a member of its board of trustees tells Mada Masr. At the time, some trustees had sought an internal investigation into the election of his son, Islam Kortam, to Parliament amid indications of vote-buying and alliances with parties close to the authorities, the source says. The proposal didn’t materialize, but the dispute did result in the movement ceasing to use the Conservative Party’s downtown Cairo headquarters as its temporary base for board meetings. Since then, board meetings have rotated among the headquarters of member parties, although other events continue to be hosted at the Conservative’s Party’s Garden City premises. According to the source, the Conservative Party’s place within the coalition has long been a source of contention given that Kortam, as a prominent businessman, enjoys ties to parts of the state. Yet some actors remain keen on having the party within the coalition, because its spacious premises provide a venue for public events that would not be possible to organize elsewhere. This paradox, the source says, has contributed to “the spread of an inaccurate impression that the party receives privileges within the coalition in return.” Balshy, who announced during the controversy that he would no longer attend movement events held at Conservative Party premises, tells Mada Masr that there was no justification for using the party’s headquarters. Other member parties, he argued, have facilities capable of hosting public events. But board member Mostafa Kamel al-Sayed argues that the severe financial shortages facing the coalition’s parties make it difficult for them to maintain rented offices or secure spaces suitable for hosting large gatherings. For the anonymous board member, “headquarters are not a marginal issue. They are the movement’s only tool of meeting people, as a relatively safe space, one that security forces are unlikely to raid.” Organizing open public events, they argue, is particularly risky since the movement “decided to exclude parties that chose to align themselves with the authorities.” The Justice Party and the Egyptian Social Democratic Party froze their membership in the movement in order to participate in the 2024 presidential election, amid a deep disagreement with most parties in the coalition, which had announced they would not put forward candidates, citing violations in the nomination process. Later that year, both parties participated in the parliamentary elections as part of the pro-government National Unified List for Egypt, with which several coalition parties rejected to participate. The Reform and Development Party also entered the race, breaking with the coalition’s boycott position. The controversy surrounding the withdrawn statement provided the Justice Party with an opportunity to announce its final departure from the coalition. Speaking to Mada Masr, Egyptian Social Democratic Party Deputy President Freddy al-Bayady says his party has effectively considered itself outside the movement since freezing its membership. He did not want to take a public stance as the Justice Party did, he says, regarding such a step as a given. For Sayed, the movement’s “sound and principled decision to reject alliances with the authorities as a route into Parliament was costly,” and further narrowed the already limited avenues for political action under existing restrictions. This, he says, poses a challenge for the Civil Democratic Movement, which “may have reached the limits of what it can achieve through its current form of political action, making it imperative to explore unconventional methods to pursue it.” The prevailing atmosphere of frustration could be affecting internal commitment, Sayed adds, “helping explain how such a contentious statement was issued without sufficient review by all parties involved.” The Popular Socialist Alliance Party also described the deleted statement as a clear breach of the movement’s charter and of the principle of participation among its members. The crisis, it said, revealed “a state of decline affecting this political framework, which at one stage played an important role in bringing together a number of Egyptian civil forces around shared goals.” Karama Party leader Sayed al-Toukhy argues that the statement being “issued without approval from member parties, even though it had been circulated on an internal group but received no response, points to a crisis in internal dialogue.” Yet what he considered revealing of a deeper crisis was the public criticism directed at the movement by groups within its own ranks, including, “attacks from Karama Party youth members.” Toukhy, who also sits on the movement’s board of trustees, argues that the fallout “highlighted the need to reform the movement’s operations mechanisms, including, for instance, by giving younger members a greater role.” Without such changes, he believes “the movement must accept gradual atrophy.” He pointed to a forthcoming meeting to discuss the coalition’s future. The anonymous board member says Kortam has been considering stepping down from the movement’s board of trustees, frustrated by the reaction to the original statement. For Balshy, the movement’s failure to address Kortam’s record stems from the coalition’s broad ideological makeup. Its members, he notes, span the spectrum “from the far right to the far left, which contributes to the sidelining of social issues, including that of the journalists, under the pretext of focusing on democracy.” But democracy, he adds, “is a broad cause and cannot by itself serve as the foundation for an alliance of such breadth. Coalitions of this kind can hold together only for limited periods in response to short-term challenges, akin to the alliances formed in France to confront the rise of fascism.” The Civil Democratic Movement was founded in December 2017 as a new version of a front that included political opposition parties with different ideologies seeking to unite against the regime since 2012. The movement initially included a number of public figures and seven parties: the Reform and Development Party, Popular Socialist Alliance Party, Dostour Party, Justice Party, Egyptian Socialist Democratic Party, Karama Party and Egypt Freedom Party. Its tasks were defined as “engaging in activities to expose the policies of the current regime, defend the civil nature of the state and confront corruption.” For Sayed and the anonymous board member, however, the movement’s ideological diversity remains one of its principal strengths. Without it, they argued, the coalition would risk being perceived as little more than a small leftist group. But board member Medhat al-Zahed points to the weakness of the parties that make up the coalition. Many, he says, are not really parties in the conventional sense but rather “the nuclei of parties.” According to Zahed, their limited size reflects an elite-driven style of politics disconnected from those with direct interests, lending them all a “Cairene” character, removed from political engagement in Egypt’s governorates. Yet despite the movement’s many shortcomings, the anonymous board member dismisses suggestions that the movement was nearing disintegration. “For a simple reason,” they say. “The movement still serves as the broad front carrying the banner of democratic demands, and there is no suitable alternative. More importantly, it prevents the parties operating within the available space [the three parties that froze their membership] from further collusion with the authorities, because it represents, even if only morally, a model that rejects such collusion.”The post Collapsing like a ‘mansion of cards’: Divisions within the Civil Democratic Movement first appeared on Mada Masr.