Controversy over constitutional amendments, and tension between party leaders and the prime minister, may ignite sparks at next week's fourth annual NDP conference, writes Gamal Essam El-Din With the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) fourth annual conference set to begin next Tuesday, senior NDP officials were busy hammering out the details of the political, constitutional and socio-economic debates being planned for the big event. The theme for the 19- 21 September conference is "New thinking and a second leap towards the future". Last year's event was headlined "New Thinking and Political Reform". According to the NDP's secretary for information, Alieddin Hilal, both political and constitutional reform will figure prominently on the conference's agenda. "This is deliberate," Hilal said, "because in the months leading up to the conference, the NDP was [accused by the press] of backtracking on political reform." The party thus aims to use the conference to show Egyptian and international observers that "the wheels of political reform have never stopped moving forward." As has been the case for the past few years, Gamal Mubarak -- President Hosni Mubarak's 43-year-old son and the head of the party's powerful Policies Committee -- will be playing a leading role at the conference. In fact, he is in charge of forging the party's new political platform. On the conference's first and second day, he will lead two debates about "democracy and citizenship", discussions that will be based on an NDP report on "democracy and citizenship rights" that party insiders said has been updated from its original, highly theoretical version that was prepared for the party's first annual conference in 2003. That draft spoke in rather general terms about the importance of promoting a culture of democracy, modernisation, religious tolerance, moderation and legislative reform. The revised version supposedly delves into much more detail about the number of constitutional amendments required to turn President Mubarak's 2005 re-election campaign's political reform programme into reality. The general outlines of this programme include abolishing the emergency law and issuing an anti-terror legislation, curtailing the powers of the president in favour of the cabinet and the People's Assembly, scrapping the existing individual parliamentary candidacy system to be replaced with a new slate system, and allocating a set quota of parliamentary seats for women. It also seeks to provide governorates and municipal councils with more autonomous powers, as well as abolish the post of the Socialist prosecutor-general. These moves would require amendments of articles 74, 87, 179, 195, 162 and 163 of the constitution, NDP sources said. According to Hilal, however, the report clearly emphasises that any decision on amending these articles would have to result from a dialogue with opposition MPs. Much attention, meanwhile, has recently been focussed on what may end up being the conference's most controversial constitutional amendment proposal. Public announcements by senior NDP officials have made clear the party leadership's intention to amend Article 88 of the constitution which mandates complete judicial oversight of general elections. Parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour, for instance, recently said he believes that the article needs to be completely and comprehensively re-drafted. "Judicial supervision of the elections should be exclusively confined to main polling stations, because it is no longer acceptable that judges come into direct contact with voters and policemen in auxiliary polling stations, or involve themselves in politics," Sorour said. That comment, along with Mubarak's decision to appoint Mamdouh Mare'i, the former chairman of the Supreme Constitutional Court, to the justice minister's post, have been interpreted by the opposition as direct attempts by the NDP to retain the party's virtual monopoly of the nation's politics by eliminating full judicial supervision over the polls. A number of opposition MPs warned on Sunday that the ruling party is planning "a grand conspiracy against the Egyptian people". MP Gamal Zahran, a leftist firebrand, said, "the NDP conference is in the process of plotting a constitutional coup... [in order to] monopolise power for another six years, and ensure that Gamal Mubarak is the next president." In an interview with Rose El-Youssef newspaper on Monday, NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif dismissed rumours of a dramatic shake-up within the NDP ranks. He said the proposals were submitted by what he called a large number of prestigious NDP members in the Shura Council, adding that in debates held during the last few days of the outgoing session of the Shura Council, these members had come to the conclusion that the current system regarding full judicial supervision over general elections was no longer acceptable. "They also argued that the full supervision of judges over various kinds of elections is time consuming and takes much effort, not to mention that it always comes at the expense of settling judicial disputes in courts with the speed and resolution required." However, El-Sherif indicated that the NDP leadership will not give its final say during the conference on the proposals aimed at eliminating judicial supervision. "These proposals will be left to public debates during the conference and then referred by President Mubarak to the People's Assembly and Shura Council for discussion," El-Sherif said. The conference's agenda includes an intensive array of meetings between NDP officials and cabinet ministers, purportedly to discuss all the different elements of Mubarak's platform, and "how far the government has been committed to implementing the six-year programme's first- year obligations." In the presence of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and his cabinet ministers, the conference will discuss, in detail, 23 reports about the progress that has been made in the education, health, housing, agriculture, land reclamation, and transport sectors. This part of the conference may end up being tense, however, as a result of the seeming cracks in the relationship between Nazif, on the one hand, and Gamal Mubarak and a large number of NDP MPs, on the other. On the last day of the outgoing parliamentary session, Nazif was interrupted during a speech by a group of NDP MPs who asked him to resign "because of his government's failure to deliver on Mubarak's programme". Soon thereafter, Rose El-Youssef, a daily newspaper with close links to Gamal Mubarak, embarked on a hostile anti-Nazif campaign. Attempting to contain the tension between Nazif and his son in the lead up to the conference, President Mubarak recently heaped praise on the government's performance, calling Nazif one of the top three prime ministers who have served since Mubarak came to power in 1981. Opposition MP Zahran sees the Nazif-Gamal clash in terms of how far the power struggle within the regime itself has gone. "Gamal Mubarak's drive to wield power," Zahran said, "has gone as far as his deciding whether prime ministers should stay or go." Hilal, meanwhile, dismissed any kind of conflict between the NDP and the government; "the only thing the NDP wants is a consistent policy of coordination between the party and the government," he said. In preparation for the conference, the NDP held a series of meetings this week on several public issues. On Sunday, a gathering called "Egyptian national security and the future of the Middle East" met, which included Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit. Discussions dealt with the relationship between Egypt and the United States and Israel and the role of Egypt in reviving the peace process, guaranteeing the integrity of Iraq and Sudan and standing up to the growth of Iranian influence. A former ambassador and a leading NDP member called for adopting an "aggressive Egyptian foreign policy in the next stage" and "developing a stand towards the American friend". Others called for refusing annual American assistance. In response, Abul-Gheit said, "US aid is acceptable as long as it is free of conditions." He argued that a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian- Israeli conflict will "relieve the region of a big source of tension" and prevent a confrontation between the West and East. The conference also aims to scrutinise the party's own internal regulations. Its 2,600 participants will review proposals for modernising those regulations, including the formation of two new secretariats for municipal councils and foreign relations. The proceedings will be broadcast live on the recently launched NDP-owned online radio station Al-Mesryoun, as well as on satellite TV station Al-Mehwar. An extensive list of politicians from the Arab world, America and Europe has been invited to attend.
