The NDP has revealed at least some of its candidates who will be contesting the parliamentary elections and there are no surprises, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The ruling National Democratic Party's six-member steering office today begins vetting candidates approved by the party's electoral colleges to make a final selection ahead of parliamentary elections, now scheduled to begin on 8 November. By the time the door for applications closed on Saturday the colleges had received more than 2,600 nominations. The electoral colleges -- set up at the instigation of President Hosni Mubarak's 42-year-old son Gamal following the 2000 elections -- whittled this number down to 444. Though the NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif announced the final list of official candidates would be made public on Tuesday. An initial list of the party's most prominent candidates is already being circulated. It includes nine cabinet ministers, five of whom -- Kamal El-Shazli (parliamentary affairs), Ibrahim Soliman (housing), Youssef Boutros Ghali (finance), Sayed Mashaal (military production) and Mahmoud Abu Zeid (irrigation) -- are members of the outgoing Assembly. Contesting parliamentary elections for the first time are Mahmoud Mohieddin (investment), Ahmed El-Leithi (agriculture), Abdel-Reheim Shehata (local administration) and Ahmed Gamaleddin Moussa (Education). The list also includes members of the party's old guard, among them Fathi Sorour, parliamentary speaker since 1990, Zakaria Azmi, chief of presidential staff, Mustafa El-Fiqi, chairman of the outgoing Foreign Affairs Committee, El-Sayed Rashed, chairman of the Union of Workers and Mohamed Abdellah, president of Alexandria University. There are, in addition, four former ministers, three of them members of the outgoing assembly. They are Amal Othman, contesting Doqqi in Giza, Mohamed Ali Mahgoub, contesting Al-Tibeen, south Cairo, Youssef Wali, running in Ibshwai in Fayoum and Mustafa El-Said who is standing in Diarb Negm in Al-Sharqiya. The list, as expected, includes the names of prominent businessmen. Of the 25 tycoons named, 22 are members of the outgoing parliament. Many are close to Gamal Mubarak and three are members of the powerful Policies Committee which Mubarak chairs. In Cairo the NDP will field four business tycoons: Mustafa El-Sallab (Nasr City), Hossam Badrawi (Qasr Al-Nil), Talaat El-Qawwas (Abdeen) and Mohamed Morshidi (Maadi). Other businessmen running outside Cairo include: Mohamed Abul- Enein in Giza, Ahmed Ezz in Al-Menoufiya, Mansour Amer in Al-Qalioubiya, Abdel-Wahab Qouta in Port Said and Tarek Talaat Mustafa in Alexandria. The list, claims the opposition, confirms its suspicions that for all the talk during the presidential election campaign the regime remains opposed to reform. "This selection," says Hussein Abdel-Razeq, secretary-general of the left-wing Tagammu Party "does not include any fresh or reform-minded faces, nor does it suggest that there is a shift towards a younger generation within the NDP." The majority of named candidates, he says, are either members of the old-guard opposed to reform, or else businessmen who are seeking greater access to the centres of power and parliamentary immunity. "The re-election of these candidates will be a catastrophe for political and parliamentary life," argues Abdel-Razeq. It will demonstrate, he says, that President Mubarak's reform pledges -- especially those concerning the strengthening of parliament's supervisory role -- were nothing but rhetoric. Other observers suggest that last week's NDP conference revealed that the old guard is hanging on to its influence within the party, at least as far as the parliamentary agenda is concerned. Amr Hashem Rabie, a political analyst with Al-Ahram, believes that President Mubarak has concluded that the American- style campaign adopted during the presidential elections cannot be applied to the parliamentary poll. "Parliamentary elections," says Rabie, "demand other tactics and strategies of which the old guard has plenty of experience." Should this lead to the new parliament replicating the outgoing one in terms of its composition, though, then the impact on political life will be asphyxiating, thinks Rabie. The NDP's parliamentary campaign begins officially on 15 October, two days after the candidate registration process opens. The campaign will be fought under the slogan "A Parliament for the Future" and its goal, says businessman Ahmed Ezz, will be a three-fold increase in the number of those who voted for President Mubarak in 7 September's presidential elections. Which means the NDP is seeking to woo at least 21 million of Egypt's 32 million registered voters. One way it hopes to do this, Ezz revealed, is by sending "NDP caravans" to tour all governorates. These "Crescent and Camel Caravans", so-called because the crescent and camel are symbols of the NDP, will begin next week. Meanwhile, Gamal Mubarak said the party's campaign will focus on President Mubarak's presidential election pledges with "NDP candidates doing their best to win the confidence of voters by explaining President Mubarak's political and economic reform programme". The opposition is hoping to challenge the NDP's stranglehold on power by upping its representation in the next parliament from 40 to 100 seats. To meet this target the opposition plans to run as one "front" against the NDP. The front, says Abdel-Razeq, will include Al-Wafd, Al-Tagammu and the Nasserist parties, Kifaya, the National Coalition for Democratic Change led by former prime minister Aziz Sidqi, the defunct Labour Party and the Islamist Wasat Party. Plans are also underway to include the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Ghad. Sidqi said on Monday he had managed to convince Al-Tagammu chairman Rifaat El-Said to drop his longstanding objection to working alongside the Brotherhood, though whether the animosity between Al-Wafd and Al-Ghad can be similarly overcome is unclear. "Forming a united front against the NDP," says Sidqi, "will be the greatest achievement of the opposition in the last 25 years." Nor, according to Sidqi, should it be viewed merely as an electoral alliance. "This front," he says, "aims to address the deterioration over which the NDP has presided for quarter of a century. It will expose corruption, work towards a new constitution and oppose further privatisation."
