CAIRO — The Wafd Party announced the establishment of a shadow government on July 31, with the aim of “supporting the state and activating the provisions of the constitution.” The Wafd shadow government consists of 32 ministers from the party, including some former state officials, among them Salah Hafez, the shadow government head who previously led the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency. “The Wafd government supports the state government. It is not an opposition government,” Hafez said in a press statement the day the shadow government was announced.

The liberal Wafd Party, established in 1918, was Egypt's majority party until 1953, the year the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) dissolved it, along with all the other political parties. It was re-established in 1978 as the New Wafd Party.

Last year, the party experienced internal division following elections held April 25. El-Sayyid el-Badawi was elected party leader, but his challenger, Fouad Badrawi, rejected the results because of vote count irregularities. This situation was fraught enough to garner the intervention of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who met with party leaders May 13. Sisi described the party as “a pillar of Egyptian political life and a guardian of the national movement legacy.” Regardless, the controversy remains ongoing.

Adel Abdul Baqi, vice president of the shadow government and former minister of administrative development, told Al-Monitor, “This is not the first time that a shadow government has been formed. We formed one before. Our goal is to support the government and help the ministers. There is cooperation between the shadow Cabinet and the actual government, and some shadow ministers are meeting with their counterparts in the actual government, but communication remains insufficient.”