The NDP conference set the stage for change within the party and the country "I heard the promises of the president and the prime minister but I have heard similar promises before and still life gets more expensive and it is no easier for my three daughters, all of them graduates, to find suitable jobs," says Kamal, a Cairo taxi driver. Improving living standards and reducing unemployment -- there are an estimated 14 million jobless -- emerged as central issues in the debates held on Thursday and Friday during the annual conference of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), reports Dina Ezzat. They also dominated the three-hour meeting of Ahmed Nazif's cabinet held on Sunday and presided over by President Mubarak. "President Mubarak's campaign during the presidential elections focused extensively on raising living standards and reducing unemployment. These were two priorities President Mubarak stressed the government needs to address," Nazif said following Sunday's cabinet meeting. They were not the only issues of public concern addressed by both the NDP conference and Sunday's meeting of the cabinet. Combating corruption is also high on the agenda. "Look at the stories that appear every day," says Kamal. "I'm not talking about government-run papers but the other newspapers that publish stories about the vast fortunes being made by those who take money from the pockets of the poor." Kamal is not alone in his concern. The public has been long outraged by the stories of corruption and graft that consecutive governments have been keen to downplay or else avoid addressing altogether. "But this is changing," insists Mahmoud Mohieddin, minister of investment and a key member of the NDP. "I tell you this frankly. We are not interested in using euphemisms or putting our heads in the sand. We admit that corruption is an issue and that it has to be addressed." At last Thursday's press briefing during the conference Mohieddin said the NDP was in the process of drafting "a comprehensive programme to eliminate corruption". "We want to be frank about the problem. We also want to be frank about how we are dealing with it. We will pursue the legislation necessary to allow the press and other media to openly and authoritatively address the issue," he added. In his Sunday press briefing Nazif underlined the message. "We are in the process of creating new systems to monitor and assess the performance of government," he said, adding that legislation to uproot corruption was being drawn up. "We are drafting legislation that will detail the authority and prerogatives of civil servants and stipulate the repercussions of wrong-doing in no uncertain terms." The prime minister added that his government's ambitious scheme to widen the level and scope of automation aimed "to reduce the impact of any particular civil servant on the interests of citizens". Sceptics argue that these are old promises that have been made repeatedly by the government and NDP yet the situation has remained unchanged. And until the government and NDP face a real challenge to their power there is little hope of them delivering on their promises. This is an unfair judgment, argued Gamal Mubarak, younger son of the president and chair of the influential NDP Policies Committee. Speaking during a press conference on Thursday Gamal Mubarak, who has emerged as one of the NDP's leading strategists, stressed that the constitutional amendment introduced by President Mubarak to allow for the nation's first-ever multi-party presidential elections is a clear sign of change. The selection of NDP candidates for the legislative elections due to start in November, he added, will further signal the party's resolve to abandon old strategies that have become synonymous with stagnation. Gamal Mubarak and Nazif were joined by the president himself who, in a major speech addressed to the NDP conference on Friday, underlined that the ruling party had "no intention whatsoever" of monopolising the decision-making process. The message all three conveyed is that there is a growing awareness within the NDP that economic and political progress will be contingent upon the emergence of a national consensus. The public, though, is likely to remain sceptical of the NDP's commitment to changing its ways as long as it continues to be fronted by the very faces large segments of society hold responsible for the corruption and stagnation. "If they do not go nothing will change," says Kamal. The reformist camp within the NDP, headed by Gamal Mubarak, has been battling the old guard since 2002. In recent months there have been growing signs that the reformists have gained the upper hand. While NDP insiders say Gamal Mubarak and his immediate aides, including Mohieddin, Finance Minister Youssef Ghali and NDP members Mohamed Kamal and Ahmed Ezz, remain courteous to the NDP's "senior citizens" -- including NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif and NDP Assistant Secretary-General Kamal El-Shazli -- the "game is coming to an end". "The old guard knows by now it is losing the battle and that it is only a matter of time before they are asked to go," said one source. In his Friday speech President Mubarak made several hints that suggested this is probably the case. "The party stands beyond individuals," he said. "There can be no going back on the new thinking... we will inject the party with new blood to revitalise its performance."
