CAIRO: Politician Hala Shukrallah, the first woman to head an Egyptian political party, resigned from her leading position at Dostour party Sunday after it entered a “vicious circle of differences and complexities.”
After a year in office, Shukrallah formed a committee in April to oversee the election of a new chairperson, but the “elders council” of the party rejected the step and opened an investigation into her. The council is tasked with interpreting the party’s statute.
She expressed hopes that her resignation would be “in the framework of founding a sound partisan experience committed to constructive competition and prioritizing the interests of the party over personal interests.”
“I hope that everybody understands that the success of a partisan experience in Egypt cannot be monopolized or owned by a particular group or current,” Shukrallah said in her resignation statement.
The future of Dostour party
The party will now be headed by its secretary-general Tamer Gomaa, per the statute of the party, chief of the elders council Ayman Awad told Youm7.
The temporary successor is committed to hold an election to appoint a new party chairperson in a span of one month, Awad said, adding that the council is studying whether Gomaa would be eligible to also run for the elections.
Meanwhile, Shukrallah will still go through an internal investigation as long as she has not resigned from the party, according to Awad.
Founded by former Vice President Mohamed Elbaradei in 2012, the Dostour Party is one of the most critical of the government.