The NDP's three-day conference, which ends today, saw Gamal Mubarak consolidating his position within the party, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The fourth annual conference of the National Democratic Party (NDP) saw Gamal Mubarak, the 43-year-old son of President Hosni Mubarak, consolidate his image as a dynamic reformer. During the conference, convened under the banner "New thinking and a second leap towards the future", the president's son played a leading role in all debates, on issues of immediate concern, such as that dedicated to constitutional amendments, as well as those devoted to strategic and national security matters and long- term projects such as the possibility of building nuclear power stations. Gamal Mubarak's ever rising profile came at the conference followed his being singled out by US President George Bush for praise. Bush was quoted in the Wall Street Journal of 9 September as saying that Mubarak junior was the leader of "a new group of reformers who are now in government". Indeed, many observers noted that Gamal Mubarak's performance at the NDP conference was nothing short of presidential -- improvisation, political acumen and winning personality. Nevertheless, he distanced himself from suggestions by certain party members that he should run for the presidency. "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. Hold me accountable only for what I say," he explained. From the moment the conference opened on Tuesday Gamal Mubarak easily overshadowed his sole old-guard rival, NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif, dominating the event to such an extent that many younger NDP members began openly to speak of him as the heir apparent of his father. On Tuesday he introduced himself to the audience with a difficult balancing act, presenting himself as the protector of the poor and marginalised while at the same time arguing for less government intervention in the economy. "Many assumed I would use the conference's opening speech to proudly list the achievements of the government and party members," he said in his keynote speech. "They will be disappointed, because in this conference I aim to focus on the hardships suffered by ordinary Egyptian citizens from Marsa Matrouh in the west to Sinai in the east and Aswan in the south... Around major cities many people live in haphazard communities and all of them need serious care." The principal job of participants at this conference, he added, "is to air the hardships and grievances which poor families face, ranging from water pollution and disease in cities like Kafr Al-Sheikh and Kafr Al-Zayat to severe unemployment in Upper Egypt." To meet the challenges Egypt faces, he argued, "requires a new way of thinking and a daring approach in finding unique solutions." "I think it is now apparent to everyone that the state can no longer continue to dominate, as of old, economic activity and business." Instead the state should concentrate on protecting Egypt's most vulnerable citizens: "the most vital role of the state in the coming period will be in protecting the poor, though it must do this in a new way," he said, before outlining the ways in which he thought the government should be acting. "The divestiture of government services in one vital sector like telecommunications allowed the state to relieve itself of a heavy burden while at the same time raising large sums of money for the treasury against the third mobile phone licence." Of the sum raised, he added, LE5 billion has been allocated to improving railway services, LE2 billion to bolstering drainage infrastructure and LE1 billion to creating new employment opportunities in Upper Egypt. He also praised the government's decision two months ago to raise petrol prices and then use some of the revenues generated to subsidise bread. "These are just two examples of what the role of the state should be and how the concept of social care can be extended to serve ordinary Egyptians... and it is far removed from the situation in which the state played the role of investor, employer and exporter..." He urged party members to be more insistent in promoting this new vision of the state as a regulator and facilitator rather than a provider. "In conveying this message party members must be more daring and open-minded," he said, particularly when it came to sectors such as health and education that are in urgent need of reform. "In the health sector public hospitals need be restructured to allow for private investment while in education reform will come to a standstill as long as some continue to hold reservations about private schools." Opposition groups interpreted the speech as a call for sweeping privatisation. Diaaeddin Dawoud, leader of the Nasserist Party, told Al-Ahram Weekly that "Gamal Mubarak is a businessman and the role he is playing now is to broaden the scope of business under the guise of reform." More dangerous, he added, "is that by giving himself the right to speak about the state and its functions Gamal Mubarak has become not just the head of the NDP's Policies Committee but is usurping the prerogative of the head of state who has the absolute right to raise such crucial matters." On the conference's second day Gamal Mubarak was keen to present himself as a leading advocate of political reform. He took charge of reviewing Democracy and Citizenship Rights, an updated version of the 2003 paper of the same title to which two chapters had been added, the first dealing with the NDP's progress in implementing political reforms over the past year, the second addressing the constitutional and legislative amendments to be pursued in 2007. The paper placed special emphasis on President Mubarak's 2005 nine-point election programme which included reinforcing the powers of the legislative and executive authorities, curtailing the powers of the president, adopting a new electoral system, fixing a quota of seats for women in parliament and devolving more power to municipal councils. It also called for adopting a Western-style anti-terror law to replace the 24-year-old emergency law and for judicial authority to be strengthened. Gamal Mubarak insisted President Mubarak's election programme was not the product of debates held behind closed doors. "It is a clear-cut and detailed programme that was announced by the president in July 2005 to usher Egypt towards a new era of constitutional and legislative amendments... Some people alleged that this programme was just a smokescreen but they have been proved wrong, especially after laws dealing with judicial sovereignty, publication offences and remand-into-custody were passed." Leaders of opposition parties, though, are far from convinced, writing of this commitment to reform as no more than rhetoric. "The amendments introduced by the NDP are very modest and certainly will not shake the foundations of Pharaonic tyranny in Egypt," said Rifaat El-Said, leader of the leftist Tagammu Party. When he alerted the audience's attention to a paper headlined Egyptian National Security and the Future of the Middle East it seemed that Gamal Mubarak was donning a pan-Arabist hat. Having been praised by President Bush two weeks earlier, he seemed keen to distance himself from the US administration. "We reject," he told conference delegates, "foreign initiatives that daily attempt to dissolve the identity of the Arab world through what is called the Middle East Initiative Project (MEIP) and others like it." The audience went into a rapture of applause. Introduced by the Bush administration in 2004, MEIP aims to democratise the Middle East and change its image as a hotbed of Islamist terrorism. NDP Secretary-General El-Sherif echoed his words, saying "we reject both the Greater and New Middle East and emphasise that these initiatives will never deflect us from laying the foundations of our renaissance." "The NDP's leader -- President Mubarak -- expressed his outright rejection of all foreign initiatives which aim to tamper with the destiny of the people." El-Sherif also drew applause when he denounced Pope Benedict's recent remarks on Islam.
