The
Arab Socialist Union is one of a number of loosely related
political partiesA political party is a political organization that seeks to attain and maintain political power within government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns...
based on the principles of
NasseristNasserism is an Arab nationalist political ideology based on the thinking of the former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was a major influence on pan-Arab politics in the 1950s and 1960s, and continues to have significant resonance throughout the Arab World to this day. It also...
Arab socialismArab socialism is a political ideology based on an amalgamation of Pan-Arabism and socialism. Arab socialism is distinct from the much broader tradition of socialist thought in the Arab World, which predates Arab socialism by as much as fifty years.- Background and influence :Arab socialism...
in a number of countries.
The Arab Socialist Union was founded in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
in December 1962 by
Gamal Abdel NasserGamal Abdel Nasser was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death in 1970. He led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which removed King Farouk I and heralded a new period of industrialization in Egypt, together with a profound advancement of Arab nationalism, including a short-lived...
as the country's
sole political partyA single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...
. The
ASU grew out of his
Free Officers MovementIn Egypt, the clandestine revolutionary Free Officers Movement was composed of young junior army officers committed to unseating the Egyptian monarchy and its British advisors...
. The party's formation was just one part in Nasser's National Charter. The Charter set out an agenda of nationalisation,
agrarian reformAgrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land or can refer more broadly to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures. Agrarian reform can include credit...
and constitutional reform, which formed the basis of ASU policy.
The
Arab Socialist Union is one of a number of loosely related
political partiesA political party is a political organization that seeks to attain and maintain political power within government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns...
based on the principles of
NasseristNasserism is an Arab nationalist political ideology based on the thinking of the former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was a major influence on pan-Arab politics in the 1950s and 1960s, and continues to have significant resonance throughout the Arab World to this day. It also...
Arab socialismArab socialism is a political ideology based on an amalgamation of Pan-Arabism and socialism. Arab socialism is distinct from the much broader tradition of socialist thought in the Arab World, which predates Arab socialism by as much as fifty years.- Background and influence :Arab socialism...
in a number of countries.
Egypt
The Arab Socialist Union was founded in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
in December 1962 by
Gamal Abdel NasserGamal Abdel Nasser was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death in 1970. He led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which removed King Farouk I and heralded a new period of industrialization in Egypt, together with a profound advancement of Arab nationalism, including a short-lived...
as the country's
sole political partyA single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...
. The
ASU grew out of his
Free Officers MovementIn Egypt, the clandestine revolutionary Free Officers Movement was composed of young junior army officers committed to unseating the Egyptian monarchy and its British advisors...
. The party's formation was just one part in Nasser's National Charter. The Charter set out an agenda of nationalisation,
agrarian reformAgrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land or can refer more broadly to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures. Agrarian reform can include credit...
and constitutional reform, which formed the basis of ASU policy. The programme of nationalisation under Nasser saw seven billion
Egyptian poundThe Egyptian pound or gineih is the currency of Egypt. It is divided into 100 qirsh , or 1000 malleem ....
s of private assets transferred into the
public sectorThe public sector is a part of the state that deals with the delivery of goods and services by and for the government, whether national, regional or local/municipal....
. Banks, insurance companies, many large shipping companies, major heavy industries and major basic industries were converted to public control. Land reforms saw the maximum area of private land ownership successively reduced from 200 to 100
feddanA feddan is a unit of area. It is used in Egypt, Sudan, and Syria. The feddan is not an SI unit and in Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen': implying the area of ground that could be tilled by them in a certain time...
s. A 90% top rate of
income taxAn income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or business . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate tax,...
was levied on income over ten thousand Egyptian pounds. Boards of directors were required to have a minimum number of workers, and workers and peasants were guaranteed at least half of the seats in the
People's AssemblyThe People's Assembly is the lower house of Egypt's bicameral parliament. In spite of its lower status, however, it plays a more important role in drafting legislation and day-to-day legislative duties than the Shura Council, the upper house....
. The Charter also saw a shift in emphasis away from Egyptian nationalism towards Arab unity.
After Nasser's death in 1970,
Anwar SadatMuhammad Anwar Al Sadat, or Anwar El Sadat , was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination on 6 October 1981...
quickly moved away from his radical socialist position. The first seat change occurred in 1974, with Sadat's
InfitahInfitah is an Arabic word meaning "open door" and refers to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's policy of "opening the door" to private investment in Egypt...
, or
Open Door, economic policy, which allowed the emergence of a modern entrepreneurial and consumerist society. Then, in 1976, the beginning of political pluralism allowed three political
platforms — left, centre and right — to form within the Arab Socialist Union. In 1978, the platforms were allowed to become fully independent political parties, and the ASU was disbanded. Many of today's political parties in Egypt have their origin in the breakup of the ASU.
The Arab Socialist Union reflected goals of this stage as the following:
- The state control over the national economy and establishing a public sector to undertake the development process.
- The Arab nationalism.
- The negative solution for classes' struggle.
- Democracy.
- Commitment to religion and freedom of faith and worship.
ASU Demise
Following the 1967 War and massive demonstrations in February and October 1969, Egypt was in a state of political turmoil, leading to raising calls for granting citizens more democratic rights and demanding self-expression for political affiliations.
Following assuming office in 1970, late president
Anwar SadatMuhammad Anwar Al Sadat, or Anwar El Sadat , was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination on 6 October 1981...
adopted the slogans of rule of law and the institutional state.
In August 1974, Sadat put forward a working paper to revamp the Arab Socialist Union.
In July 1975, the Arab Socialist Union's general conference adopted a resolution on establishing political forums within the union for expression of opinion in accordance with basic principles of the Egyptian Revolution.
In March 1976, president Sadat issued a decree allowing three forums to represent the right wing (the Liberal Socialist Organization), the center wing (Egypt Arab Socialist Organization) and the left wing (the National Progressive Unionist Organization).
These forums were later transformed into parties, forming today's Egyptian major political parties.
During the first meeting of the People's Assembly on November 22, 1976, president Sadat declared the three political organizations turned into parties.
In June 1977, the law of political party was enacted, allowed the existence of several political parties and demonstrated the shift to a multi-party system. However the ratification of this law had not meant cancellation of the Arab Socialist Union, rather it had given the Union more powers to allow party formation.
Syria
The ASU in Syria grew out of an Egyptian-backed merger of several Nasserist opposition groups, all of them working illegally under
Baath PartyThe Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was founded in Damascus in the 1940s by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar, both Syrian intellectuals, as the original secular Arab nationalist movement, to unify all Arab countries in one State and to combat Western colonial rule that dominated the Arab region at that...
rule in the early 1960s. In 1972, the party gained legal recognition as a member of the
National Progressive FrontThe National Progressive Front , established in 1972, is a coalition of political parties in Syria that support the socialist and Arab nationalist orientation of the government and accept the leading role in society of the Arab Socialist Ba’th Party.The Front was established by Syrian president...
(NPF), a governing coalition that grouped all legal parties under Baathist supervision. The following year, the adoption of a constitution sidelining non-Baathist members of the coalition provoked a split, with the majority of the party deciding to leave the NPF. This group formed the Democratic Arab Socialist Union (DASU) to act in opposition under party leader
Jamal al-AtassiJamal Al-Atassi was a Syrian nationalist, politician and author. He was one of the earliest ideologues of the nascent Syrian Baath Party, which he joined soon after it was founded...
, while a small rump faction under Fawzi Kiyali stayed on in the NPF, retaining the original name and legal status with Baathist government backing.
Since the death of al-Atassi, the DASU has been led by Hassan Abdelazim. It remains an illegal party and has been subject to sporadic repression; although it became semi-openly active after the accession of
Bashar al-AssadDr. Bashar al-Assad is the President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party, and the son of former President Hafez al-Assad.- Overview of Presidency :...
to power in 2000, and under the limited liberalization that followed. The DASU is the leading member of the
National Democratic GatheringThe National Democratic Rally or National Democratic Gathering is a banned opposition alliance in Syria, comprising five political parties of a secularist, pan-Arabist, Arab nationalist and socialist bent....
, a nationalist-leftist opposition alliance founded in 1979.
The regime-backed ASU still exists as part of the NPF. It has very limited activity, but remains represented in Syrian politics largely thanks to NPF-controlled elections. It received 7 of the 250 seats in the Syrian legislature in 2003, and 8 in the 2007 elections.
Libya
Many aspects of
Muammar al-GaddafiMuammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi
1 has been the de facto leader of Libya since a coup in 1969....
's
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
n revolution were based on that of
Gamal Abdel NasserGamal Abdel Nasser was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death in 1970. He led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which removed King Farouk I and heralded a new period of industrialization in Egypt, together with a profound advancement of Arab nationalism, including a short-lived...
. Like Nasser, Qaddafi seized power with a
Free Officers MovementIn Egypt, the clandestine revolutionary Free Officers Movement was composed of young junior army officers committed to unseating the Egyptian monarchy and its British advisors...
, which, in 1971 became the Arab Socialist Union. Like its Egyptian counterpart, the Libyan ASU was the
sole legal partyA single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...
, and was designed as a vehicle for integrated national expression rather than as a political party. In 1972, Qaddafi pushed hard for the formation of a Federation of Arab Republics, combining Libya with Egypt and Syria under his leadership, but the plan never took off. 1974 saw an attempt for union with
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
also fail.