The list of 44 presidential appointees to the Shura Council is heavily weighted in favour of the NDP, writes Gamal Essam El-Din The success of the National Democratic Party in the Shura Council's mid-term elections was consolidated with the announcement of the names of 44 presidential appointees to the council, many of them members of the party's influential Policies Committee, headed by President Hosni Mubarak's younger son, Gamal. On Sunday the Shura Council met for the first of three procedural sessions, at which NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif was re-elected for a second term as Shura Council speaker. After being endorsed by 259 council members, El-Sherif issued a short statement saying he hoped the new session would see greater cooperation between the council and the People's Assembly in promoting parliamentary life and overseeing the performance of the government. In response, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said his government was ready to cooperate with both houses in order to improve the lives of ordinary citizens. The government, said Nazif, has already achieved high growth rates, reduced inflation and boosted levels of foreign exchange reserves. "In addition, and as parliament recommended," he added, "LE16 billion has been allocated to improve public services and utilities." In the second procedural session former minister of labour Ahmed El-Amawi was chosen as first deputy speaker, replacing the deputy chairman of the General Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions Mohamed Mursi. Mohamed Abdel-Reheim Nafie, former chairman of the council's Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, will become second deputy speaker. Ragaa El-Arabi, former prosecutor-general and a council appointee, replaces Nafie as chairman of the Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee. In the third procedural session NDP members were selected to head all remaining Shura Council committees. Mohamed Bassiouni, former ambassador to Israel, becomes the chair of the Arab, Foreign and National Defence Committee. Businessman Mohamed Farid Khamis will continue to head the Industry and Energy Committee while scientist Farkhonda Hassan becomes the chairwoman of the Human Resources Development Committee. While the NDP's clean sweep of committee chairmanships on the back of its electoral victories came as no surprise, the publication of the names of presidential appointees to the Shura Council raised some eyebrows. In addition to the 44 names presented by the president's office, Ahmed Maher, former foreign minister, and professor of law Badr Helmi Rizkallah, also join the council, replacing economist Ahmed Rashad Moussa and politician Fikri Makram Ebeid, both of whom died last year. Appointees who are also members of the NDP's Policies Committee include businessman Hossam Badrawi, head of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS) Abdel-Moneim Said, NDP Secretary-General for Media Affairs Alieddin Hilal and editor of the weekly Rose El-Youssef magazine Abdallah Kamal. Amr Hashem Rabie, a political analyst at the ACPSS, believes their appointment signals a triumph for the NDP's younger, reformist wing led by Gamal Mubarak. "The most dynamic representatives of the 'new way of thinking' espoused by Gamal Mubarak are now all members of either the Shura Council or the People's Assembly," says Rabie. NDP Shura Council spokesman Mohamed Ragab, however, denies that this is a sign of the growing political influence of Gamal Mubarak. "The NDP is the party which emerged victorious from the elections and it is only to be expected that new appointees will be drawn from groups loyal to the party," he argues. In addition to Badrawi, Said, Hilal and Kamal, the list of new appointees includes the director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Ismail Serageddin, former health minister Awad Tageddin, chairman of the Cairo NDP office Mohamed El-Ghamrawi and NDP Secretary- General for Professionals Mohamed Hassan Al-Hefnawi. Mamdouh Qenawi, chairman of the Free, Social and Constitutional Party and Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, editor of Al-Gomhuriya newspaper, are also members of the council, which now includes five journalists: Abdel-Moneim Said and Osama El-Ghazali Harb from Al-Ahram, Al-Gomhuriya 's Ibrahim, Rose El-Youssef 's Kamal and Makram Mohamed Ahmed, a former editor of A l-Mossawer. The Al-Gomhuriya and Rose El-Youssef appointments, says Rabie, are a reward for the respective publications' support of President Mubarak and his son in the face of hostile campaigns from the opposition press. Neither Ibrahim Nafie, former editor and board chairman of Al-Ahram, and Samir Ragab, editor of the evening daily Al-Masaa, were reappointed. Other figures to lose their council membership include Mohamed Farid Zakaria, chairman of Al-Ahrar Party and Mamdouh Ismail, shipping magnate and owner of the ferry which sank in the Red Sea last year killing more than 1,300 passengers. Meanwhile, El-Sherif, Interior Minister Habib Al-Adli, Minister of Labour Aisha Abdel-Hadi, former prime minister Atef Ebeid, former transportation minister Suleiman Metwalli and economist and member of the NDP's Policies Committee Yomna El-Hamaki all had their seats in the council renewed. None of the NDP re- appointees include the heads of four political parties -- Rifaat El-Said (Tagammu), Abdel-Moneim El-Assar (the Greens), Osama Shaltout (Takaful) and Mohamed Sarhan (Wafd) -- as well as well known Coptic public figures, including historian Younan Labib Rizk, law professor Rabeh Ratib Basta and businessman Wadie Ghali Fikri. The Christians appointed, notes Rabie, are either businessmen or academicians, and secular in outlook.
