The ruling party met the government to debate the ways and means of implementing President Hosni Mubarak's presidential campaign programme The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) has embarked on a series of high-level meetings in an effort to re-invigorate the party's ranks, and deal with the shortcomings highlighted by its poor performance in the 2005 parliamentary elections, reports Gamal Essam El-Din. Gamal Mubarak, President Hosni Mubarak's 43-year-old son, is thought to be the main driving force behind this week's flurry of meetings. The younger Mubarak said the NDP's internal structures needed serious reform, and that the party had to forge closer ties with the government to implement the president's election campaign programme. In an unprecedented move, the party held what it called "the one-day conference" on Sunday. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, as well as the party's 29-member Secretariat General and 13- member politburo, attended its six sessions. Nearly every one of the government's 30 cabinet ministers was also there. NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif said the conference aimed to find a united stand -- between the government and the party's parliamentary deputies and leading officials -- on political and economic policies. "We want both sides to meet in one place and listen to each other," El-Sherif said. The conference was also a golden opportunity for the party to outline its priorities to Nazif, while simultaneously finding out more about the government's policy statement. The NDP thinks the government should mainly focus on improving services and fighting employment, El-Sherif said. A lot of NDP parliamentary deputies and leading officials, including Gamal Mubarak, think the government's dismal record in these domains was the primary factor that led to the ruling party's disappointing parliamentary results. In any case, El-Sherif said, the party was open to any criticism that would "maximise the benefits and minimise the losses". According to Parliamentary and Legal Affairs Minister Moufid Shehab, many leading NDP officials put their personal interests above the party's during the elections. "That's why the performance of the party's leading officials in all 26 governorates should be heavily scrutinised." Another of the conference's tracks had to do with the ways and means of implementing the president's election campaign programme. This process will move in three directions, said Gamal Mubarak: political reform; fighting unemployment and raising incomes; and improving public services. The People's Assembly would be charged with formulating a number of constitutional reforms. Addressing a human development conference on Monday, Gamal Mubarak said the new reforms would feature a curtailing of the president's powers so that there was more balance between him and the prime minister. He dismissed the opposition's charge that Article 76 of the constitution was amended in a way that only serves the ruling party. "I'm sure," he said, "that by the time presidential elections are held in 2011, a lot of opposition parties will be able to compete." That was not Nasserist Party leader Diaaeddin Dawoud's view. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that he believes Gamal Mubarak's recent promotion to the ruling party's upper echelons, and his prominence at the party's current set of meetings, clearly demonstrate that all political and constitutional changes will be tailored to serve one objective: grooming Gamal Mubarak to be the next president. Opposition MPs do seem satisfied, however, with the way their views on constitutional and political reform are being sought out by the assembly. Their opinions will be collected and submitted to the president by the end of May. The only problem, said Brotherhood MP Hamdi Hassan, was that the suggested reforms are far short of what's required. "The result will be a process of patching up the constitution, without dealing with the core issues." When it comes to fighting unemployment, raising the incomes of poor and limited-income citizens, and improving public services, Gamal Mubarak was optimistic that the current "international trust in the Egyptian economy," would help the government introduce more economic reforms, and also help "citizens feel the tangible results of reforms as soon as possible, especially when it comes to education and health." The conference also crystallised the budgetary allocations required for the implementation of the president's programme. Earlier on Saturday, Gamal Mubarak headed the influential NDP Policy Secretariat's first meeting in six months.
