CAIRO – The newspaper of Egypt’s oldest opposition party has stopped publishing for the first time in more than 20 years amid a leadership dispute that has paralysed the party, officials said yesterday.
Al Wafd daily did not appear on newsstands on Friday for the first time since 1984. The liberal Al Wafd party was established in 1922, banned with other parties in 1954 and made its comeback in 1984.
The disappearance of the paper follows the January 18 ousting of Wafd President Noaman Gomaa, who suffered a major disappointment in recent parliamentary elections. Mahmoud Abaza, who heads a reformist wing within the party, took over as interim president until the party’s general assembly on February 10.
The paper was suspended after Gomaa asked Al Ahram publishing house to stop printing the paper and fired its editor, managing editor and other journalists, complaining of their allegiance to Abaza’s group.
