Wafd Party
Encyclopedia
The Wafd Party was a nationalist liberal political party in Egypt
. It was said to be Egypt's most popular and influential political party for a period in the 1920s and 30s. During this time it was instrumental in the development of the 1923 constitution
, and supported moving Egypt from dynastic rule
to a constitutional monarchy
, where power would be wielded by a nationally-elected parliament. The party was dissolved in 1952, after the 1952 Egyptian Revolution.
led by Ahmed Orabi in the early 1880s. This revolution was fought against the ruling powers of the Egyptian Khedive
and European interference with Egyptian affairs. Saad Zaghloul, the future creator and leader of the Wafd Party, was a follower of Orabi, and participated in his revolution.
The actual party began taking shape during World War I
. Saad Zaghloul began forming a group of individuals who shared his views, and did not include the assistance of the people. Saad Zaghloul and his contemporaries formed the Wafd (which literally means "delegation") near the end of the war. They presented themselves with Zaghloul as their representative to Reginald Wingate, the British governor in Egypt. They told Wingate that the main goal of the Wafd was the immediate termination of the British occupation of Egypt. This was what was originally told to the governor but he was not informed of their intention to use the Paris Peace conference
to plead their case to the world powers. Zaghloul had created a delegation that involved representatives of most of the political and social groups of Egypt. Since it was full of so many different groups, it could not yet truly be considered a political party but more of a coalition. The Wafd had formed a constitution outlining the ways that they wish to govern Egypt.
The Wafd was denied its request to go to London and speak with the home government. They were not allowed to attend the Paris peace conference either. They counteracted this by publishing memos and giving speeches ensuring that the delegations in Paris would know what the real Egyptian delegation desired. Later protests and statements led to the deportation of Saad Zaghloul and other key figures of the Wafd to the island of Malta
. These deportations caused the opposite effect to that the British had hoped. Though they tried to keep it quiet, word spread and eventually led to a strike of law students. This strike became a demonstration with chants including “Long live Saad… Long live Independence”. This started the revolution of 1919 and in the following days many more began to strike and the government and courts shut down entirely. The British then released Saad Zaghloul and his followers to create a rift in the Wafd leadership. In reaction they further unified the party and the strikes continued.
The Wafd was now becoming a true party and one with complete support of the people. The delegation made its way to Paris only to hear that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
supported the British Protectorate of Egypt. Though at this point the British were still in control, the Wafd was effectively leading the people of Egypt. In 1920, the British protectorate ended and the Wafd was placed in control of Egypt. The party rapidly became the dominant political organization in the country and was the governing party (albeit in a subordinate role to the executive power of the king) through most of the liberal period which came to an end with the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser
.
, the British Residency
, and the Wafd leadership, of which the Wafd was the least powerful. In the fragile stability of this triangle, the Wafd became Egypt's preeminent political organization, described by contemporary historians as "the first in the field," "the best organized," and "the strongest numerically." In the 1924 parliamentary election the Wafd won 179 of 211 parliamentary seats. In 1936 it won 89% of the vote and 157 seats in Parliament.
However, ties between the Wafd and the two other axes of power - the King and the Residency - were strained by the party's raison d'être of opposing British intervention in Egypt and the King's collusion therein. King Fuad I
's relations with the Wafd were described as "cool," and ties between the unelected monarch and the largest political party further deteriorated after Fuad's son Farouk, who succeeded his father to the sultanate, signed an unduly quiescent treaty with the British in 1936. This alienated the party that had arisen primarily out of popular resentment of British control of Egypt and commanded popular support by associating itself most closely with the nationalist struggle for full Egyptian independence.
following the Free Officers Revolution of 1952.
Further social unrest resulted from the government's inability to resolve metastasizing labor disputes threatening the Egyptian economy. The twin occurrences of the worldwide recession prompted by the Great Depression
and a regional cotton crisis slowed Egypt's GDP growth through the late 1920s and most of the following two decades. The consequent instability in the labor market motivated early attempts at widespread unionization. Sensing a threat to its unrivaled power, the Wafd implemented numerous local labor conciliation boards, which were essentially toothless owing to the dearth of labor laws on a national level. Though the Wafd secured guarantees of a permanent national labor council, no significant labor laws were enacted; those that did gain passage were not enforced; and the Wafd was unable to effect any substantial change in the fiercely anti-union policy of the government.
After student demonstrations against the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and the anti-labor policies of the government began to reveal cracks in the previously ironclad Wafd coalition, party leaders created a youth wing dubbed the "Blue Shirts." However, rather than capitalizing on the grassroots
nature of the youth movements, the party instead tried to slot the Blue Shirts onto their own rung in the top-down Wafd hierarchy, presenting members with uniforms, badges, and a standardized salute - all under the motto "Obedience & Struggle." By June 1937, the Wafd feared that the Blue Shirts were becoming too militant, and thereafter further restricted their privileges. Having never fully embraced youth mobilization, by the close of the 1930s the uneasy Wafd leadership had essentially abandoned any efforts at intergenerational coalition-building.
. The policies followed by the party during the Anglo-Egyptian crisis of the mid-1930s alienated many Egyptian nationalists - heretofore the single most reliable support bloc for the Wafd - and severed the party between its small but powerful accommodationist minority and its large but voiceless resistant majority. The failure of the Wafd to more aggressively oppose the continuation of the British presence "left Egyptian politics devoid of a popularly legitimized leader or party."
(Arabic: Hizb al-Wafd al-Jadid حزب الوفد الجديد) was founded, following a liberal, nationalist line similar to the original Wafd party. In the November and December 2005 legislative elections
the party won 6 out of 454 seats in the People's Assembly
.
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. It was said to be Egypt's most popular and influential political party for a period in the 1920s and 30s. During this time it was instrumental in the development of the 1923 constitution
1923 Constitution of Egypt
The 1923 Constitution was a constitution of Egypt during the period 1923-1952. It was replaced by the 1930 Constitution for a 5-year period before being restored in 1935. It adopted the parliamentary representative system based on separation of and cooperation among authorities...
, and supported moving Egypt from dynastic rule
Muhammad Ali Dynasty
The Muhammad Ali Dynasty was the ruling dynasty of Egypt and Sudan, from the 19th to the mid-20th Century. It is named after its progenitor, Muhammad Ali Pasha, regarded as the founder of modern Egypt. It was also more formally known as the Alawiyya Dynasty...
to a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
, where power would be wielded by a nationally-elected parliament. The party was dissolved in 1952, after the 1952 Egyptian Revolution.
The rise of the Wafd Party
The Wafd party was an Egyptian nationalist movement that came into existence in the aftermath of World War I. Though it was not the first nationalist group in Egypt, it had the longest lasting impact. It was preceded and influenced by smaller and less significant movements which evolved over time into the more modern and stronger nationalist Wafd Party. One of these earlier movements was the Urabi RevoltUrabi Revolt
The Urabi Revolt or Orabi Revolt , also known as the Orabi Revolution, was an uprising in Egypt in 1879-82 against the Khedive and European influence in the country...
led by Ahmed Orabi in the early 1880s. This revolution was fought against the ruling powers of the Egyptian Khedive
Khedive
The term Khedive is a title largely equivalent to the English word viceroy. It was first used, without official recognition, by Muhammad Ali Pasha , the Wāli of Egypt and Sudan, and vassal of the Ottoman Empire...
and European interference with Egyptian affairs. Saad Zaghloul, the future creator and leader of the Wafd Party, was a follower of Orabi, and participated in his revolution.
The actual party began taking shape during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Saad Zaghloul began forming a group of individuals who shared his views, and did not include the assistance of the people. Saad Zaghloul and his contemporaries formed the Wafd (which literally means "delegation") near the end of the war. They presented themselves with Zaghloul as their representative to Reginald Wingate, the British governor in Egypt. They told Wingate that the main goal of the Wafd was the immediate termination of the British occupation of Egypt. This was what was originally told to the governor but he was not informed of their intention to use the Paris Peace conference
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
to plead their case to the world powers. Zaghloul had created a delegation that involved representatives of most of the political and social groups of Egypt. Since it was full of so many different groups, it could not yet truly be considered a political party but more of a coalition. The Wafd had formed a constitution outlining the ways that they wish to govern Egypt.
The Wafd was denied its request to go to London and speak with the home government. They were not allowed to attend the Paris peace conference either. They counteracted this by publishing memos and giving speeches ensuring that the delegations in Paris would know what the real Egyptian delegation desired. Later protests and statements led to the deportation of Saad Zaghloul and other key figures of the Wafd to the island of Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
. These deportations caused the opposite effect to that the British had hoped. Though they tried to keep it quiet, word spread and eventually led to a strike of law students. This strike became a demonstration with chants including “Long live Saad… Long live Independence”. This started the revolution of 1919 and in the following days many more began to strike and the government and courts shut down entirely. The British then released Saad Zaghloul and his followers to create a rift in the Wafd leadership. In reaction they further unified the party and the strikes continued.
The Wafd was now becoming a true party and one with complete support of the people. The delegation made its way to Paris only to hear that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
supported the British Protectorate of Egypt. Though at this point the British were still in control, the Wafd was effectively leading the people of Egypt. In 1920, the British protectorate ended and the Wafd was placed in control of Egypt. The party rapidly became the dominant political organization in the country and was the governing party (albeit in a subordinate role to the executive power of the king) through most of the liberal period which came to an end with the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
.
Rise to preeminence
The three-decade period between Britain's nominal exit in 1922 and the nationalist revolution of 1952 saw the erection of an uneasy balance of power between the KingKing of Egypt
King of Egypt was the title used by the ruler of Egypt between 1922 and 1951. When the United Kingdom ended its protectorate over Egypt on 28 February 1922, Egypt's Sultan Fouad I issued a decree on 15 March 1922 whereby he adopted the title of King of Egypt...
, the British Residency
The Residency
The Residency is the usual name of the official residence of a Resident, Resident Commissioner or Resident Councillor in the British Empire....
, and the Wafd leadership, of which the Wafd was the least powerful. In the fragile stability of this triangle, the Wafd became Egypt's preeminent political organization, described by contemporary historians as "the first in the field," "the best organized," and "the strongest numerically." In the 1924 parliamentary election the Wafd won 179 of 211 parliamentary seats. In 1936 it won 89% of the vote and 157 seats in Parliament.
However, ties between the Wafd and the two other axes of power - the King and the Residency - were strained by the party's raison d'être of opposing British intervention in Egypt and the King's collusion therein. King Fuad I
Fuad I of Egypt
Fuad I was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfur. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, he became Sultan of Egypt and Sudan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Sultan Hussein Kamel...
's relations with the Wafd were described as "cool," and ties between the unelected monarch and the largest political party further deteriorated after Fuad's son Farouk, who succeeded his father to the sultanate, signed an unduly quiescent treaty with the British in 1936. This alienated the party that had arisen primarily out of popular resentment of British control of Egypt and commanded popular support by associating itself most closely with the nationalist struggle for full Egyptian independence.
Loss of popular support
The collapse of the widespread popular support once commanded by the Wafd has been historically attributed to the combined embattlements of three distinct trends in Egyptian politics of the pre-revolutionary era. The party, along with all other Egyptian political parties, was banned in January 1953 by Gamal Abdel NasserGamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
following the Free Officers Revolution of 1952.
Social problems in Egypt
The power vacuum resulting from the end of the British mandate over Egypt also precipitated a severe welfare provision vacuum which the new government failed to fill. By the 1930s, Egypt had become a top destination for Christian missionary organizations, which funded and performed badly needed social services for the Egyptian middle and lower classes. Western proselytizing consortia beseeched their sponsors "to make heavy sacrifices so that Egyptian children could have a better education than their own parents could afford"; likewise, the proliferation of missionary-operated hospitals exposed the inadequacy of government-provided healthcare.Further social unrest resulted from the government's inability to resolve metastasizing labor disputes threatening the Egyptian economy. The twin occurrences of the worldwide recession prompted by the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and a regional cotton crisis slowed Egypt's GDP growth through the late 1920s and most of the following two decades. The consequent instability in the labor market motivated early attempts at widespread unionization. Sensing a threat to its unrivaled power, the Wafd implemented numerous local labor conciliation boards, which were essentially toothless owing to the dearth of labor laws on a national level. Though the Wafd secured guarantees of a permanent national labor council, no significant labor laws were enacted; those that did gain passage were not enforced; and the Wafd was unable to effect any substantial change in the fiercely anti-union policy of the government.
Failures of youth mobilization
During the 1920s, the party's leadership had placed very low emphasis on the recruitment and mobilization of youth. Complacent in its dominant parliamentary position, the Wafd did not pursue innovative methods of youth organization until at least the mid-1930s, leaving it hopelessly behind future competitors such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which had employed a far more effective local-franchising system since its inception in 1928.After student demonstrations against the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and the anti-labor policies of the government began to reveal cracks in the previously ironclad Wafd coalition, party leaders created a youth wing dubbed the "Blue Shirts." However, rather than capitalizing on the grassroots
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
nature of the youth movements, the party instead tried to slot the Blue Shirts onto their own rung in the top-down Wafd hierarchy, presenting members with uniforms, badges, and a standardized salute - all under the motto "Obedience & Struggle." By June 1937, the Wafd feared that the Blue Shirts were becoming too militant, and thereafter further restricted their privileges. Having never fully embraced youth mobilization, by the close of the 1930s the uneasy Wafd leadership had essentially abandoned any efforts at intergenerational coalition-building.
Accommodation of the British presence
Easily the greatest factor contributing to popular disillusionment with the Wafd was the party's failure to boycott the Farouk government after it acceded to the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936
The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Egypt; it is officially known as The Treaty of Alliance Between His Majesty, in Respect of the United Kingdom, and His Majesty, the King of Egypt...
. The policies followed by the party during the Anglo-Egyptian crisis of the mid-1930s alienated many Egyptian nationalists - heretofore the single most reliable support bloc for the Wafd - and severed the party between its small but powerful accommodationist minority and its large but voiceless resistant majority. The failure of the Wafd to more aggressively oppose the continuation of the British presence "left Egyptian politics devoid of a popularly legitimized leader or party."
Leaders
- Saad Zaghlul Pasha 1919 to 1927
- Mustafa el-Nahhas Pasha 1927 to 1952
New Wafd party
In 1983 a New Wafd PartyNew Wafd Party
The New Wafd Party is a nationalist liberal party in Egypt.It is the extension of one of the oldest and historically most active political parties in Egypt, Wafd Party, which was dismantled after the 1952 Revolution. The New Wafd was re-established in 1983...
(Arabic: Hizb al-Wafd al-Jadid حزب الوفد الجديد) was founded, following a liberal, nationalist line similar to the original Wafd party. In the November and December 2005 legislative elections
Elections in Egypt
Egypt elects on national level a head of state – a president – and a bicameral legislature.The President of the Republic is elected for a six-year term by popular vote. This election mechanism has been in place since a May 2005 amendment to the Egyptian Constitution...
the party won 6 out of 454 seats in the People's Assembly
People's Assembly of Egypt
The People's Assembly is the lower house of Egypt's bicameral parliament. In spite of its lower status, however, it plays a more important role in drafting legislation and day-to-day legislative duties than the Shura Council, the upper house....
.
See also
- New Wafd PartyNew Wafd PartyThe New Wafd Party is a nationalist liberal party in Egypt.It is the extension of one of the oldest and historically most active political parties in Egypt, Wafd Party, which was dismantled after the 1952 Revolution. The New Wafd was re-established in 1983...
- Makram EbeidMakram EbeidMakram Ebeid Pasha was an Egyptian Coptic politician. Ebeid was the Wafd Party secretary-general between 1936 and 1942. He was also a finance minister of Egypt. Ebeid left the Wafd Party after a dispute with his old friend and the then Prime Minister of Egypt and leader of the Wafd Party Mustafa...
- Hoda ShaarawiHoda ShaarawiHoda Shaarawi , also sometimes transliterated as Huda Shaarawi or Hoda Sha'rawi, was a pioneer Egyptian feminist leader and nationalist.- Biography :...
- Al-Wafd newspaper
- Egypt's Liberal ExperimentEgypt's Liberal ExperimentEgypt's "Liberal Experiment" took place between 1924 and 1936.The Wafd Party saw independence and constitutional government linked. While the British did not agree with full independence, they certainly liked the idea of European-style constitutional government. The country's first elections for...
- Liberalism in EgyptLiberalism in EgyptLiberalism in Egypt or Egyptian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 19th century.-Introduction:Egyptian self-government, education, and the continued plight of Egypt's peasant majority deteriorated most significantly under British occupation. Slowly, an organized...