The National Democratic Party's constitutional programme attracts condemnation from the opposition, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The National Democratic Party (NDP) Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif says debates at the NDP's fourth annual conference, scheduled on 19 September, will focus exclusively on President Hosni Mubarak's 2005 presidential election programme. Following a meeting of the party's steering office on 15 August, El-Sherif revealed that the conference will be dedicated to discussing ways to implement the political reforms promised in Mubarak's election manifesto, while the Democracy and Citizenship Rights paper, submitted two years ago, will also be resuscitated. On 7 August, while meeting with the chairmen of the party's provincial offices, President Mubarak had signaled as much. "2007 will be the year of constitutional reforms," he told them. "I have already instructed that the NDP's annual conference focus on discussing the political reforms contained in my election programme." These include scrapping the 25-year-old emergency law in favour of a Western-style anti-terror law, curtailing presidential prerogatives, enhancing the cabinet's decision- making role, overhauling the electoral system, allocating a quota of parliamentary seats for women and abolishing the post of the Socialist Prosecutor-General. While legal experts say the proposals will require several constitutional amendments, according to parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour "they will not require the drafting of a new constitution to replace the existing one." Sorour was echoing Mubarak who, in his 7 August meeting, said the constitution remained viable because "many of its chapters enshrine a progressive set of freedoms, human rights, and social equality". Mubarak added that among the sections that would remain untouched "are article two stating that Islam is the religion of the state and that principles of Islamic sharia are the mainstay of legislation, and Article 87 stating that 50 per cent of seats in both the People's Assembly and Shura Council should be reserved for representatives of workers and farmers". Two grass-root constitutional amendments to be proposed by the NDP have taken observers by surprise. In an online dialogue with NDP members on 15 August Sorour indicated that Article 88, which states that general elections be conducted under full judicial supervision, could be amended. "There is a proposal that full judicial supervision be scrapped in favour of committees headed by judges," said Sorour, who argued that "this system will ensure both the sovereignty of judges and integrity of elections." The second amendment will fix the definition of constitution-complement laws which, under the constitution, must be discussed first by the Shura Council. The new proposal suggests that these laws be clearly defined since in the past laws not put up for discussion before Shura Council have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC). The NDP's political and constitutional agenda was greeted with suspicion by opposition figures. "As usual," said Wafd Party chairman Ibrahim Abaza, "the NDP is seeking to both appropriate the opposition's right to propose constitutional changes and to unilaterally impose its agenda." Amr Hashem Rabie, a political analyst with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), said he had been shocked by the proposed agenda of constitutional amendments. "It is very depressing that the president and parliamentary speaker agree that the existing 35-year-old constitution remains valid," said Rabie. "The NDP's proposed amendments are cosmetic and fail to tackle the articles that prevent Egypt from ever hoping to become a real democracy." The proposal to replace full judicial supervision with "symbolic judicial committees" is, he said, "a glaring setback". "It seems that the judges' insistence on exercising meaningful judicial supervision has become a headache for the NDP which is now seeking to relieve itself of this thorn altogether." Egypt's brief democratic spring of 2005, believes Rabie, is well and truly over. In his speech opening the 2005-2010 People's Assembly President Mubarak said he would prefer the opinions of MPs to be canvassed before any constitutional amendments were made. Before adjourning for the summer recess the People's Assembly prepared a 23- page report which stated that out of 432 MPs questioned about amendments, 302 (70 per cent) had replied opinions. The report found a majority of these MPs agreed that some of the president's powers should be handed to the People's Assembly and the cabinet, though the focus of the NDP-dominated parliament was on a single article, 74, which allows the president to authorise urgent measures should the country's national unity or safety be threatened. Gamal Zahran, a leftist MP and professor of political science at Suez University, sees NDP MPs concentration on Article 74 as little more than a joke given the consensus among opposition and independent MPs that "a new constitution needs to be charted or else articles providing the president with draconian powers be eliminated wholesale from the present one." Zahran cited an ACPSS report saying that under the current constitution the president can act unilaterally in more than 60 per cent of cases. "In delivering their opinions, opposition MPs asked that the constitution incorporate a system of checks and balances and that the power of the executive be placed on an equal footing with that of the legislative and judicial branches of government." Opposition MPs, Zahran continued, had also demanded the president be stripped of many privileges, including appointing senior judges (including the prosecutor-general and chairman of the Supreme Constitutional Court) and the right to dismiss the prime minister and cabinet ministers. That President Mubarak has flatly refused to comply with opposition demands and appoint a vice president, while his son Gamal has said that any changes to current articles 76 and 77 are off the NDP's agenda, leads Zahran to characterise the ruling party's programme as "more a constitutional coup than reform".
