When the People's Assembly begins its final session next week, the mood will be ripe for lively debates. Gamal Essam El-Din reports The People's Assembly -- Egypt's lower house of parliament -- will inaugurate the final, and possibly most crucial, session of its five-year term next week. A long-standing war of words between the assembly's ruling and opposition camps will most probably reach a crescendo during lively debates over a hefty batch of controversial political and economic legislative reforms. The gloves are also likely to come off as opposition and independent MPs are planning to target several cabinet ministers with questions on corruption and lack of vision. The final session will kick off next week with a procedural meeting aimed at electing a speaker and two deputies. Parliament speaker Fathi Sorour is expected to be re-elected. On Thursday 11 November, President Hosni Mubarak will deliver a speech before a combined session of the People's Assembly and Shura Council, parliament's consultative upper house. The speech is expected to focus on a variety of regional and local issues, ranging from Egypt's role in resolving the bloody conflicts in Palestine, Iraq and Sudan, to the local political and economic situation. One month before parliamentary elections are held in October 2005, the People's Assembly will also name a nominee for the president's post. Mubarak, 76, is expected to run for a fifth term, which would keep him in power until the year 2011. The upcoming session's importance lies not only in the fact that it is the last before parliamentary elections are held next year; but also due to the emergence of an increasingly bitter clash between the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) on the one hand, and a bloc of eight opposition parties on the other, over constitutional and political reform. These debates are sure to reverberate during the assembly's final session. The NDP has been gearing up for this contest; it devoted most of the debates during its second annual conference to proposing amendments to three key laws that govern Egypt's political life. These include the 1956 law on the exercise of political rights (popularly known as the electoral law), the 1972 People's Assembly law, and the 1977 Political Parties law. Conspicuously absent from the NDP conference's agenda, however, were the opposition's two basic demands for democratic transformation of the political system: amending the constitution to curtail the president's powers and limit the successful candidate to two terms in office; and abrogating the 23-year-old emergency law. Infuriated by the NDP's unilateral agenda of political reforms, the opposition planned to hold a public rally in Cairo's downtown Abdin Square on 4 November, one week before parliament convenes. The NDP-dominated government, however, responded by banning the planned rally. The relationship between the NDP and the opposition deteriorated even further when Interior Ministry officials emphasised that, given the highly sensitive security situation caused by the Taba bombing, it would be very difficult to sanction opposition public rallies in Cairo or anywhere else in Egypt. The opposition, however, saw the cancellation in another light. Wafd Party Chairman Noaman Gomaa said the rally was blocked because it planned to call the world's attention to the emergency law's negative impact on democratisation and political life in Egypt Tagammu Party Chairman Rifaat El-Said said the rally would have mobilised all political forces behind the supreme objective of amending the current constitution. "Amending the present constitution is not an objective in itself. It is an inevitable step on the road of having a democratically-elected president, ensuring the principle of power rotation, and turning Egypt into a true parliamentary democracy." According to El-Said, the widening gap between the NDP and the opposition will make 2005 a crucial year in Egyptian politics. "In 2005, Egypt will be facing two choices: either maintaining the status quo with its devastating impact on political life; or falling prey to Islamist forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood." El-Said said the opposition's role "is to press hard for ensuring that Egypt adopts a third choice: liberal democracy". Leftist MP Abul-Ezz El-Hariri told Al-Ahram Weekly that during the second half of 2005, the world's attention would be focussed on Egypt and its parliament. "Egypt will lose a lot if the NDP- dominated parliament continues to insist on maintaining the status quo by having a referendum in which the president will win a new term by more than a 95 per cent majority." Independent MP Ayman Nour, whose Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) Party was officially licensed on 27 October, said reforming parliamentary and political life must be a priority in 2005. Nour told the Weekly that his party would agree to President Mubarak running for a fifth term, as long as this takes place through direct popular vote in which the people would choose from among several candidates. Representatives of the opposition bloc met on Saturday to renew their call for constitutional and political reform. El-Said was commissioned by the bloc to ask for security bodies' permission to hold a public rally on 18 November. "We will push hard for this request because it is a legitimate right to address the nation in a public rally, and with a view to the fact that the NDP monopolises the local media," said El-Said. Sensing the tense political mood, NDP Secretary- General Safwat El-Sherif said the ruling party was not planning to impose its reform agenda on opposition parties. Addressing the NDP's professionals committee on 27 October, El-Sherif predicted four developments in the next stage of Egypt's political life: a national dialogue between the NDP and opposition parties; another dialogue between the NDP and civil society organisations (NGOs and professional syndicates); coordination meetings between the government and the NDP on bills to be submitted to parliament's final session; and the NDP's plan of action aimed at mobilising the party for next year's parliamentary elections. El-Sherif said, "we plan to conduct a national dialogue with opposition and civil society forces in order to reach agreement on political reforms that we all wish to see passed by the People's Assembly in its final session." For his part, Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Hosni Mubarak and chairman of the NDP's Policies Committee, said that once an agreement is reached with political forces, the party's parliamentary committee would meet with the government to prepare the session's legislative agenda. According to Mubarak, the parliamentary committee, which is headed by NDP Assistant Secretary-General Kamal El-Shazli, acts as a coordinating link between the NDP and the government regarding legislation and other issues to be discussed by parliament. Economic issues will also figure prominently in the next parliamentary session, foremost among which are a new draft law aimed at fighting private monopolies, and the recent governmental decision to raise the price of potable water. Another batch of NDP-inspired economic laws dealing with sweeping tax and customs duties reforms will also be the subject of lively debates. Opposition MPs are preparing to direct interpellations (questions that must be answered by the government) at a large number of cabinet ministers. One of these, submitted by leftist MPs Kamal Ahmed and El-Badri Farghali, accuses Housing Minister Ibrahim Suleiman of large-scale graft.
