Mubarak's Labour Day speech offered yet another clue to the likelihood of his running for a fifth term. Dina Ezzat reads between the lines of a potential campaign platform On Tuesday morning, President Hosni Mubarak delivered his annual May Day speech to several thousand labour leaders in the tightly secured Nasr City conference centre. The event, which was abruptly shifted from 28 April to 3 May, offered an opportunity for a few government figures and labour leaders to appeal to the president to run for another (fifth) term in office when presidential elections -- the first ever multi- candidate ones in Egypt's history -- take place next September. " Mesh kefaya, mesh kefaya. Maak ya rayes lil- nehaya, " chanted a few of the workers who had been hand-picked by the government to participate in the event. "Not enough, not enough. We support you, Mr President, until the end." Unlike Mubarak's 23 previous May Day speeches, this time the president stayed away from the predictably long statements about the importance of Egyptian workers, and the state's commitment to granting them more rights. Appreciation for workers' contributions, and promises of better working conditions, were noted of course, but on an atypical note, the president also stressed the new concepts that govern his "future" thinking regarding the give-and-take relationship that should exist between workers and governments. These include higher and better productivity, modernisation of industry, adjustment to the rules of the market economy, and more government-private sector integration. The president said he had ordered the government to work with labour leaders to formulate "a new national policy" that would establish a government/workers dynamic by which "workers' wages will be determined by the level of their productivity." There were also promises of better social security and healthcare systems for workers. A close look at the syntax and semantics of Mubarak's speech offered ample evidence of the likelihood of his running for a new term -- even though during his recent TV interview, Mubarak said he was still thinking about it. His use of the term "future" -- with regards not only to workers but also investments, taxes, customs, and wages-versus-prices policies -- was one such clue. During the speech, the president also used the phrase, "I have not and will not," several times -- yet another message for those speculating that Mubarak might not run for a new term. "I have been, and I will remain, committed to supporting limited income groups," he also said. "I am committed to pursuing reform," was another hint. Other highly indicative phrases that dotted the ending, especially, of the president's 40-minute speech included, "my request to amend Article 76 of the constitution is only a new step on the road," and, "I am hoping for new policies." Combined with the short balance sheet presented by the president regarding the political, social and economic achievements of the past few years, Mubarak's speech sounded much like an electoral platform being offered to an enthusiastic audience of supporters. It also sounded like an electoral platform that was highly influenced by the liberal economic concepts that have been aggressively championed by the ruling National Democratic Party's Policies Committee, whose chair, Gamal Mubarak, was conspicuously absent from the conference centre's VIP section. Mubarak's emphasis on the importance of IT in modernising government performance also seemed to indicate that Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, whose primary mandate is modernisation, would most likely remain at the head of Mubarak's first fifth-term government if the president does indeed run, and win, in the autumn of this year.
