Gamal Essam El-Din reviews the history of the ruling National Democratic Party, with a special focus on the expectations of its leaders for the upcoming parliamentary elections In a speech in 1978 marking the 26th anniversary of the July 1952 Revolution, late president Anwar El-Sadat announced the formation of a new political party. In the words of Sadat, "The new party will be called the National Democratic Party (NDP) -- after the old defunct National Party established by Mustafa Kamel, an anti-British nationalist leader in 1907." Sadat added: "The formation of the NDP is necessary to fill the political vacuum which [has] hit Egypt after the dissolution of the Arab Socialist Union (ASU)," the political party that governed the country from 1964. Following a nationwide referendum, Sadat dissolved the People's Assembly and new elections were held in June 1979, in which the NDP won a sweeping majority, grabbing 347 seats out of 390. At the NDP's first general congress in October 1980, Sadat was elected chairman and Hosni Mubarak deputy chairman. One month after the second party congress was held in September 1981, Sadat was assassinated and Mubarak took over as both president of the republic and NDP chairman. Some argue that the death of Sadat all but fully altered the style and image of the NDP. Mohamed Abdellah, a senior NDP official and chairman of the Shura Council's Economic and Fiscal Affairs Committee, argues that "under Sadat the NDP was acting like a truly independent entity rather than a bureaucratic political institution like the ones we know [from] Third World countries." During the 1980s and 1990s, said Abdellah, the NDP acted as if it were an extension of the government. "Nevertheless," he argues, "the party continued grabbing the majority of seats in the parliamentary elections of 1984, 1987, 1990 and 1995." The same decades saw the rise to effective control of the party's most influential figures: Youssef Wali, then the party's secretary-general and minister of agriculture, Kamal El-Shazli, then the party's secretary for organisational affairs and minister of state for legal and parliamentary affairs, and Safwat El-Sherif, then the party's secretary for media affairs and minister of information. Today, Wali is all but fully retired and El-Shazli is keeping a lower profile -- partly due to his declining health. Now speaker of the Shura Council, El-Sherif, however, remains influential with direct access to President Mubarak himself. By 2000, a wide-ranging overhaul was considered necessary. Following an unimpressive showing in the parliamentary elections of the same year -- conducted under the full supervision of judges -- the party confronted unmistakable indicators of its own malaise. Indeed, NDP leaders could not ignore the fact that the party's official candidates secured a meagre 38.7 per cent of contested seats, and that it was only by reintegrating so-called "NDP independents" (defecting members who insisted to run against the will of the party's central command) that it secured a crucial majority. Some argue that early signs of the NDP's poor performance in the 2000 elections prompted Mubarak to bring "new blood" into the party. Indeed, it was eight months ahead of the 2000 elections that the president, in his capacity as NDP leader, appointed his younger son, Gamal, to the NDP general secretariat, along with some high-profile entrepreneurs including Ahmed Ezz, a steel magnate, and Ibrahim Kamel, an investment tycoon. As they dared to challenge NDP ruling concepts, and to provoke momentum for change within the party, this group was promptly labelled the "new guard", as opposed to the then NDP old guard composed of Wali, El-Shazli and El-Sherif. In the December 2005 parliamentary elections, the new guard faced a replay of the poor performance of NDP candidates in 2000, acting to reinforce its call for deep reform that ultimately would dilute some of the leverage monopolised by the party's "old guard". Indeed, Gamal and Ezz were appointed to head a committee tasked with reforming the NDP. From that day forward, the name of Gamal Mubarak has been associated with aggressive internal reform, fully supported not just by Ezz and Kamel but also by other like-minded entrepreneurs finding their way into the NDP. In September 2002, when the NDP held its eighth general congress, Gamal Mubarak introduced the slogan "A new style of thinking". Along with it the party established a new body: the Policies Committee. Gamal was announced the head of this committee that came to bear the responsibility of overhauling the party. On the Policies Committee sit 200 handpicked figures, composed of business leaders and academics, tasked with weeding out "antiquated viewpoints" and the old socialist policies of the 1960s. Eventually, the role of the Policies Committee -- and that of Gamal Mubarak -- expanded. In July 2004, a major reshuffling of the government included many figures recommended by the Policies Committee. Meanwhile, liberal thinking entrepreneurs and academics were finding ways to introduce fast- tracked liberal policies that some critics say were insensitive to the needs of some echelons of society, arguably costing the party dearly in the 2005 parliamentary elections when NDP candidates failed to bypass the humble 32.6 per cent of the contested seats. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood secured its biggest ever gain, managing to grab 88 seats -- or one fifth of the parliament's total seats. The NDP was thus forced to resort to the traditional trick of reintegrating "NDP-independents" to secure a majority of 71.5 per cent of parliamentary seats. The "new guard" pleaded innocent and blamed the failure squarely on the shoulders of the old guard. With the subsequent replacement of El-Shazli by Ezz in February 2006, it became clear that the NDP was departing from its old style in favour of a younger and fresher look. To accentuate the new look, Gamal Mubarak became one of three assistant secretary-generals in the party. With a clear vote of confidence from the leadership, the "new guard" proposed and heavily participated in drafting 34 amendments to the Egyptian constitution. To the chagrin of the opposition, the amendments stripped judges of the power to fully supervise elections and put a part- judicial commission in their place. In parallel it worked to develop a new mechanism for the selection of the party's candidates in parliamentary elections. The three-stage process included holding "electoral colleges", organising internal elections and conducting opinion polls. NDP members who wish to run for election as party candidates should face three stages. In the electoral colleges stage, senior NDP officials in government meet to elect candidates in a secret ballot and evaluate candidates via interview. In the second stage, around 1.5 million NDP members take part in internal elections to select party candidates. Meanwhile, opinion polls will be conducted among NDP members and ordinary citizens about the party's prospective candidates. The results of this selection process will show which candidates are favoured. According to NDP Secretary for Organisational Affairs Ahmed Ezz, "this cumbersome process was necessary to whittle down the 2,900 party members who put themselves forward as possible candidates and to ensure that the NDP's selected candidates are the most popular and worthy ones." Ezz emphasised that the upcoming election is crucial to the NDP, and that the party is keen not to select candidates rejected by public opinion. Many NDP MPs in the outgoing 2005-2010 term were implicated in several financial and criminal scandals. "The fact remains that these NDP MPs were originally independents who joined the party's ranks to raise its majority in parliament," said Ezz. "In other words, these MPs were not selected by the party; it was forced to accept them to secure it the majority needed in parliament." "This year, we do not want to resort to NDP- independents again, and this is why we developed the cumbersome three-stage selection process. We want to see how much the candidates selected by the party will be able to secure it the needed majority without resorting to independents again," Ezz continued. "The fact that the 2005 parliamentary elections saw official NDP candidates competing against so- called NDP-independents caused the ruling party a great deal of harm, and served the Muslim Brotherhood, which managed to clinch a historic number of 88 seats." "This year," Ezz said, "we hope that we will not see any more NDP- independents and that all NDP supporters will be mobilised to give their votes to the party's official candidates and no one else." "It is a big test for the party and its new style of reformist thinking," Ezz said. The test is proving to be far from easy. Figures, however, show that a large number of NDP members have already decided to leave the party's ranks and stand in the elections as independents. Indeed, between 2,500 and 3,000 candidates refused to face the cumbersome selection process or donate large amounts of money to the party, believing that they would win as independents rather than as NDP candidates. Meanwhile, Ezz declines to share his expectations of how many seats the NDP will win in the upcoming elections. "This is quite difficult, but we are sure that the party will secure a majority without resorting to the NDP-independents again," he said. Ezz indicated that the NDP's list would include some high-profile names with wide popularity and a proven record of performance, not to mention that it also includes new young faces that will reinvigorate the next parliament and help the image of the party. Other leaders, such as Media Secretary Alieddin Hilal and Assistant Secretary-General Moufid Shehab expect the NDP to gain the majority of seats followed by secular opposition parties. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, Shehab expects that it will never be able to secure such a large number of seats again as it took in 2005. According to Shehab, "the NDP's correction of 2005's mistakes, and the decision of most opposition parties not to boycott the election and even field a large number of candidates, will surely strip the outlawed group of a strong presence in the next parliament." On Wednesday, 10 November, the NDP Higher Board, chaired by Mubarak himself, was set to meet to touch up the party's electoral strategy and campaign. And when the NDP's seventh annual conference convenes late December -- after a delay from the originally scheduled date of 9 and 10 November -- it may well be a time for the "new guard" to confirm and celebrate new political gains.
