The final session of parliament -- which began on Monday -- features a host of controversial political and economic reform bills Following a five-month summer recess, the People's Assembly inaugurated the final session in its five-year term on Monday with a procedural meeting that saw the re- election of speaker Fathi Sorour, who became the first person in Egypt's 138-years of parliamentary history to hold the speaker's post for 15 consecutive sessions, reports Gamal Essam El-Din. After being re-nominated at a Sunday meeting between ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) deputies and President Hosni Mubarak, 409 MPs voted for Sorour. The speaker's two deputies -- El-Sayed Rashed, chairman of the General Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions (GFETU), and Amal Othman, a former minister of social insurance -- were also selected, as were the chairmen of the parliament's 18 committees. NDP MP Hussein Megawer -- of South Cairo's Maadi district -- was appointed the NDP's parliamentary spokesman. Mubarak will be addressing a combined session of the People's Assembly and the Shura Council, the assembly's consultative upper house, today. The president's address is expected to deal with a list of thorny issues ranging from the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and the deteriorating conditions in Iraq and Sudan, to the importance of moving forward with economic and political reforms at home. On Sunday, Mubarak told NDP MPs that he expects US President George Bush -- during his second term in office -- to provide a renewed boost to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mubarak accused Israel of exploiting Bush's preoccupation with his re-election to re- occupy the Gaza strip, step up its aggression against the Palestinians, and build a wall around the West Bank. Despite all these hurdles, Mubarak said Egypt was still determined to do its best to bring the two sides to the negotiating table. While the situation in Iraq was equally complex, Egypt was doing what it could to help improve matters, Mubarak said, by holding the Sharm El-Sheikh conference on Iraq in the last week of November, upon the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. "Fighting between the Iraqis and the Americans has broadened into [fighting] between the Iraqis themselves," Mubarak said, blaming the Americans for not listening to advice he gave them before the invasion. "They thought the Iraqis would greet them with roses," Mubarak said. The president also said Egypt was working hard to help settle the conflict in Sudan, "in addition to the medical assistance [being] offered to the blighted province of Darfur." Mubarak then delved into domestic issues, saying Egypt was determined to move forward with political and economic reform -- albeit at its own pace. "All I want to stress in this respect is that gradualism must be the hallmark of this reform," he said. A package of political reform initiatives would be submitted to parliament, "These legislations will lead to more democratisation," Mubarak said. The president said he was in favour of using the individual system (which obligates candidates to run on an individual basis, rather than as a party bloc) during the 2005 parliamentary elections. Runaway population growth and the huge cost of state subsidies were the cause of Egypt's economic crises, the president said. Egypt had become a net importer of wheat despite increased production of that vital crop. As for subsidies, in just a year and half, they had gone up to a whopping LE12 billion. Although a burden on the budget, they would be maintained as a necessity aimed at protecting citizens from the ravages of the market economy and the surge in the prices of international goods. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, meanwhile, spoke to the Shura Council about the government's legislative agenda, which will focus on reforming regulations governing customs, taxes and investment. "We also have other draft laws aimed at fighting monopolies and introducing new tax exemptions," Nazif said. He argued that the new custom reductions, especially those related to capital goods, would provide a boost to investment in Egypt. In reaction, most opposition figures said the NDP-inspired reform initiatives were primarily aimed at enhancing the party's image, and timed to coincide with next year's parliamentary and presidential elections. Leftist-oriented MP Abul-Ezz El- Hariri cited the two bills on income tax exemptions and custom reductions as having clear political objectives. "Raising the salaries of millions of state employees (through the new tax exemptions) and lowering prices of goods to millions of limited-income citizens (through tax reductions) will help change people's views about the NDP," he said, after the party had been heartily denounced for floating the pound last year. NDP officials defended their initiatives, saying they represented a genuine belief in reform. Gamal Mubarak, the president's son and head of the NDP's Policies Committee, told the party's Economic Committee on Monday that the initiatives reflected a new philosophy aimed at ridding the market of recession, relieving citizens of financial burdens, and introducing sweeping tax and custom reforms. Despite the opposition criticism, the initiatives are expected to pass easily. The opposition has more problems, however, with the NDP's political reform initiatives, which aim at amending laws on political parties, the election system and the People's Assembly. The emergence of a new liberal-oriented party -- Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) -- will probably contribute to the tense debates in store. Al-Ghad Chairman Ayman Nour had asked parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour to allow Al-Ghad to form a parliamentary bloc, since the party already includes six MPs -- who were previously classified as independents. Not only would that give Al-Ghad a lot of clout in the assembly, it will also immediately make it the opposition leader. Al-Wafd is currently the opposition party with the largest number of MPs, with five. "There is no question that endorsing a parliamentary bloc for Al-Ghad will strip Al- Wafd (Nour's former party) of much of its power and influence in political life. It will also support the theory that the [political parties] committee approved Al-Ghad so it could be a thorn in Al-Wafd's side," said Amr Hashem Rabie, a political analyst with Al-Ahram's Centre for Strategic and Political Studies. By Gamal Essam El-Din
