EGYPT: When Vows Meet

A few weeks ago, Egypt’s two strong men swore mighty oaths. Mustafa el Nahas, the old (75) pro, five times Prime Minister, since 1927 chief of the powerful and corrupt Wafd Party, vowed: “No power after God can force me from this position except the people.” General Mohammed Naguib, the new Prime Minister, proclaimed a law requiring Egypt’s political parties to purge themselves of corrupt leaders, and vowed: “The law is sacred, and will be applied to Mustafa el Nahas as to anyone else.”

Last week these irreconcilable vows came into conflict, and it was General Naguib who held the field when the smoke of battle blew away. Defeated Nahas summoned the Wafd Executive Council to his ornate home, announced that he was quitting, screamed at his followers to get out of the way, and then stumbled upstairs to political oblivion, crying bitterly.

Naguib, who had sent troops to rout Farouk, had sent a tax collector to rout Nahas. How, the confident investigator asked Nahas, had he managed to accumulate his huge wealth—two palaces and a large farm? Nervously, Nahas insisted that he was personally poor; the investigator would have to see his wife. Madame Nahas explained that she had made the family fortune by dealing in buffaloes. Unusual trade, murmured the investigator, and how had she got together her original capital? A 10,000-pound (Egyptian) wedding gift from her husband, she snapped. The investigator folded his papers. Everyone knew that before Nahas married his Zeinab, he was a poor politician.

When the investigator left, Madame Nahas called in her husband. There is a time to quit, just as there is a time to fight, she said. Her money was running out; she could no longer pay for Mustafa el Nahas’ 20 secretaries. The next morning Nahas, once Egypt’s greatest political force, was a trembling, powerless old man. The Naguib revolution rolled on.