Workers Democratic Party
Encyclopedia
The Workers National Democratic Party (WDP) also is a workers' political party
in Egypt
formed shortly after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. It is backed by the Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions
and forms part of the Coalition of Socialist Forces
. The party name is sometimes translated in English as Democratic Workers Party, Democratic Labour Party or Labour Democratic Party.
(RS) in response to the country's growing strike
movement which preceded the revolution
. WDP spokesperson Kamal Khalil says "Most leftist attempts to form a party include intellectual
s as major players and a number of worker
s as members... This party aims at having workers as the main players and leaders of the party joined by a number of intellectuals."
. Party officials claim socialist revolution "is not feasible in the current political environment", citing the Egyptian working class
' "lack of political experience and the underdevelopment of the labour movement
". They instead advocate the re-nationalization
of industry and more genuine worker democracy. Although not a self-proclaimed revolutionary party, the WDP cites revolutionary language and theory. For example, on May Day
, 2011 - the first May Day after Mubarak - the party chanted "A workers’ revolution against the capitalist government
" while marching to Tahrir Square. The same day, Hossam el-Hamalawy
, a representative of the party, called for "a complete halt to the neoliberal
program." And Ahmed Ezzat, one of the founders of the WDP has admitted "Lenin
's What is to be Done
and April Notes helped shape our strategy, as did Marx
's theories". Ezzat has also labeled the Muslim Brotherhood
"counter-revolutionaries".
On 10 May 2011, the WDP agreed to enter into a "socialist front" with four other Egyptian leftist groups called the Coalition of Socialist Forces
. The new grouping includes the Revolutionary Socialists, the Egyptian Communist Party
, The Socialist Party of Egypt and the Popular Democratic Alliance Party
.
, color or sex
." The re-nationalization of industry is one of the WDP's key demands but unlike under Gamal Abdel Nasser
, where the heads of state-owned factories were appointed by the President
, the WDP calls on workers of these factories to appoint their own managers. The WDP stands for abolishing privatization
and monopoly
policies, and redirecting development plans to benefit "underserved social classes". The party is also coordinating with other forces to establish a higher minimum wage
for Egyptian workers, the establishment of trade union
s independent of the state
, and to improve working conditions in all workplaces. They are also calling for "combating administrative corruption and reevaluating Egypt’s economic ties to Israel
". Their slogan is "the workers must be united".
basis. Also, party leaders are required to raise at least LE
1 million to publish the names of at least 5000 founders in two widely-circulated dailies. The WDP sees this as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
way of discriminating against the poor
and labour movement: "This shows that the old mentality is still there and that the government is siding with businessmen rather than workers." The WDP is expected to defy the legislation and launch their party as soon as they recruit at least 10,000 workers and 10,000 farmers.
Workers' Party
Workers' Party is a name used by a number of political parties throughout the world. While the name has been used by both left-wing and right-wing organizations, it is currently used by left-wing followers of Communism, Maoism, Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Social Democracy, Socialism and...
in Egypt
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...
formed shortly after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. It is backed by the Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions
Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions
-Formation:On 30 January 2011, as part of the 2011 Egyptian protests, a meeting convened in Tahrir square led to the formation of the Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions in response to the effective State control of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation....
and forms part of the Coalition of Socialist Forces
Coalition of Socialist Forces
The Coalition of Socialist Forces is a coalition of five socialist and left-wing groups in Egypt formed on 10 May 2011. The different forces agreed to enter into a "socialist front" in order "to create a more dominant leftist force" in post-revolutionary Egypt...
. The party name is sometimes translated in English as Democratic Workers Party, Democratic Labour Party or Labour Democratic Party.
History
The party was initiated by the leftist front Hashd and the Revolutionary SocialistsRevolutionary Socialists (Egypt)
The Revolutionary Socialists are a Trotskyist organisation in Egypt aligned with the International Socialist Tendency. According to Mark LeVine, a professor of history at the University of California, the RS "played a crucial role organising Tahrir and now in the workers movement" post-President...
(RS) in response to the country's growing strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
movement which preceded the revolution
2008 Egyptian general strike
The 2008 Egyptian general strike was a strike which occurred on 6 April 2008, by Egyptian workers, primarily in the state-run textile industry, in response to low wages and rising food costs. Strikes are illegal in Egypt and authorities have been given orders to break demonstrations forcefully in...
. WDP spokesperson Kamal Khalil says "Most leftist attempts to form a party include intellectual
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
s as major players and a number of worker
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
s as members... This party aims at having workers as the main players and leaders of the party joined by a number of intellectuals."
Politics
Although the RS have been instrumental in the formation of the party, the WDP does not present itself as a revolutionary partyVanguard party
A vanguard party is a political party at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or revolution. The idea of a vanguard party has its origins in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
. Party officials claim socialist revolution "is not feasible in the current political environment", citing the Egyptian working class
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
' "lack of political experience and the underdevelopment of the labour movement
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
". They instead advocate the re-nationalization
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
of industry and more genuine worker democracy. Although not a self-proclaimed revolutionary party, the WDP cites revolutionary language and theory. For example, on May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
, 2011 - the first May Day after Mubarak - the party chanted "A workers’ revolution against the capitalist government
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces consists of a body of 20 senior officers in the Egyptian military. As a consequence of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Council took the power to govern Egypt from its departing President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011.The junta meets regularly, as...
" while marching to Tahrir Square. The same day, Hossam el-Hamalawy
Hossam el-Hamalawy
Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian journalist, blogger, photographer and socialist activist. He is a member of the Revolutionary Socialists, the Center for Socialist Studiesand the Workers Democratic Party.- Early life and career :...
, a representative of the party, called for "a complete halt to the neoliberal
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
program." And Ahmed Ezzat, one of the founders of the WDP has admitted "Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
's What is to be Done
What is to be Done?
What to do? Burning Questions of Our Movement is a political pamphlet written by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in 1901 and published in 1902...
and April Notes helped shape our strategy, as did Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
's theories". Ezzat has also labeled the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
"counter-revolutionaries".
On 10 May 2011, the WDP agreed to enter into a "socialist front" with four other Egyptian leftist groups called the Coalition of Socialist Forces
Coalition of Socialist Forces
The Coalition of Socialist Forces is a coalition of five socialist and left-wing groups in Egypt formed on 10 May 2011. The different forces agreed to enter into a "socialist front" in order "to create a more dominant leftist force" in post-revolutionary Egypt...
. The new grouping includes the Revolutionary Socialists, the Egyptian Communist Party
Egyptian Communist Party
The Egyptian Communist Party is a political party in Egypt, formed in 1975 by a number of members of the former Egyptian Communist Party. Under the regimes of Presidents Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak the new Communist Party faced state repression and was barred from running in elections. The...
, The Socialist Party of Egypt and the Popular Democratic Alliance Party
Popular Democratic Alliance Party
The Socialist Popular Alliance Party is a leftist party in Egypt formed shortly after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Its membership comprises many leftist organisations, mainly former members of the Tagammu Party who resigned, later joining the party after a split over the party's position on...
.
Demands
The party’s most important principles are "the respect of all Egyptians’ religious beliefs and bringing an end to discrimination on the basis of religionReligion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, color or sex
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
." The re-nationalization of industry is one of the WDP's key demands but unlike under 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...
, where the heads of state-owned factories were appointed by the President
President of Egypt
The President of the Arab Republic of Egypt is the head of state of Egypt.Under the Constitution of Egypt, the president is also the supreme commander of the armed forces and head of the executive branch of the Egyptian government....
, the WDP calls on workers of these factories to appoint their own managers. The WDP stands for abolishing privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
and monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
policies, and redirecting development plans to benefit "underserved social classes". The party is also coordinating with other forces to establish a higher minimum wage
Minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
for Egyptian workers, the establishment of trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s independent of the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
, and to improve working conditions in all workplaces. They are also calling for "combating administrative corruption and reevaluating Egypt’s economic ties to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
". Their slogan is "the workers must be united".
Legality
Under the current Political Parties Law, the WDP may not acquire official recognition, due to the law banning parties forming on a classSocial class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
basis. Also, party leaders are required to raise at least LE
Egyptian pound
The Egyptian Pound is the currency of Egypt. It is divided into 100 Qirsh , or 1,000 Milliemes ....
1 million to publish the names of at least 5000 founders in two widely-circulated dailies. The WDP sees this as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces consists of a body of 20 senior officers in the Egyptian military. As a consequence of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Council took the power to govern Egypt from its departing President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011.The junta meets regularly, as...
way of discriminating against the poor
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and labour movement: "This shows that the old mentality is still there and that the government is siding with businessmen rather than workers." The WDP is expected to defy the legislation and launch their party as soon as they recruit at least 10,000 workers and 10,000 farmers.