The NDP's second annual conference will end today with Gamal Mubarak's Policies Committee having consolidated its leadership of the ruling party. Gamal Essam El-Din has been following the debate As he stood before the podium in the Khufu Hall of Nasr City's Conference Centre, there could have been little doubt in anybody's mind that Gamal Mubarak's stature and influence within the ruling National Democratic Party had reached a new high. His speeches drew a lot more applause than did those of the party's old guard, but they were primarily focussed on the need to liberalise the economy and open it up to foreign competition. When it came to political reform, Gamal Mubarak seemed content that the 2005 legislative agenda would include amendments to certain key laws, including those regulating the setting up of political parties and the exercise of political rights. Conspicuously absent from that agenda, however, were the opposition's two basic demands for getting Egypt's precarious democracy on to a sounder basis: amending the constitution so as to curtail the president's powers and limit the successful candidate to two terms in office, and abrogating the emergency law. Indeed, amending the constitution seemed to be a taboo subject at the conference. Not a single NDP delegate -- out of a total of 2,200 -- felt the need to ask publicly why this key element in the political reform programme advocated by the opposition was being completely ignored. Abdel-Moneim Said, an NDP member and director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), told Al-Ahram Weekly, "If the NDP leadership does not believe it is necessary to amend the constitution in 2005, it ought at least to tell us why, and in a convincing way." Said said he agreed with the opposition that amending the constitution is a priority for solving the structural problems of Egypt's political system. Instead, NDP members chose to shower ministers of the economic group -- Gamal Mubarak's "mini- cabinet", as some like to call them -- with questions about customs and tax reforms. This trio is composed of the ministers of finance (Youssef Boutros Ghali), trade and industry (Rashid Mohamed Rashid), and investment (Mahmoud Mohieddin). Also jocularly known as "Gamal Mubarak's men", these three dominate the key economic portfolios, just as they dominated the conference's first day debate, which focussed almost entirely on economic issues. Mohamed Abdallah, president of Alexandria University and veteran NDP member, found nothing extraordinary in the economic agenda figuring so prominently. According to Abdallah, there is a general belief in the NDP that the great task of 2005 is economic reform, in order to overcome market recession, lower prices and raise the incomes of the vast majority of limited income citizens. "This is highly important for a party which will within one year be facing both a presidential referendum and parliamentary elections," said Abdallah, adding that "gradualism must be the hallmark of political reforms in 2005 and beyond, regardless of any foreign (or to be more accurate, American) pressure in this respect." One NDP insider told the Weekly that though "the slogan of this conference is 'New Thinking and Priorities of Reform', our priorities for 2005 are more economic than political". President Hosni Mubarak will close the three-day event today with a speech emphasising the principle of gradualism in political reform. President Mubarak put his point across clearly in an interview on Monday with Mayo, the weekly newspaper which serves as the NDP's mouthpiece, saying that "We can't bring about the political reform we seek given the economic situation, and we can't realise social justice without a strong economy." President Mubarak is not expected to drop any bombshell announcements as he did at last year's conference. According to the conference's general report, the NDP will mobilise in 2005 to prepare the ground for nominating President Mubarak for a fifth term in office (2005-2011) by holding nationwide public rallies and issuing books detailing Mubarak's achievements over 24 years in power. Gamal Mubarak's Policy Committee will play the main role in leading the pro-Mubarak campaigns. On the second day of the conference, the main plenary session was carefully orchestrated to emphasise the NDP's position, namely, that "democratic reform" takes precedence over "constitutional reform". "Democratic reform -- which is confined to amending certain key political laws -- will ultimately lead us to adopt constitutional reform," said Safwat El-Sherif, the secretary- general of the NDP. El- Sherif argued vigorously that calling off the state of emergency is not a priority at the present time. "This is a law principally aimed at fighting terrorism," said El-Sherif, contending that "safeguarding citizens against new waves of international terrorism must continue to be our top priority." El-Sherif indicated that a dialogue between the NDP and opposition forces would be launched shortly. "We are all in the same boat, and we want to have an objective dialogue with all political forces so that we can realise our common aspirations," El-Sherif said. As on the first day, Gamal Mubarak also dominated the second day's debate, which was devoted to discussing an NDP document entitled "Rights of Citizenship and Democratisation". According to Gamal Mubarak, "The aim of this document is to deliver a response to sceptics who argue that the present constitution has to be amended because it is no longer valid." Gamal Mubarak took the floor twice, delivering a number of bombshell announcements about upcoming amendments to political legislation. Mubarak revealed that the law on the exercise of political rights (40/1977) will be amended so as to approve for the first time the setting up of a higher committee responsible for supervising the 2005 parliamentary elections from A to Z. "This committee will take charge of upgrading voter registration lists, regulating electoral campaigning and redrawing constituency boundaries," Mubarak said. He added that the committee would consist of two members representing the interior and justice ministries, plus five other independent figures. He also gave a detailed outline of the amendments relating to two laws regulating the functioning of the People's Assembly and the formation of political parties. Most of these amendments, however, have already been rejected by the opposition parties. They include measures to make it easier for citizens to form political parties and to facilitate the work of professional syndicates and NGOs. Mohamed Kamal, a member of the Shura Council, revealed that the NDP is aiming to conclude a "charter of honour" with the opposition parties. This charter, Kamal said, would impose a ceiling on the funding for election campaigns, and the NDP would give an undertaking that cabinet ministers and provincial governors would abstain from making use of their influential positions to promote NDP candidates during the election period. "The NDP is also committed to seeing all opposition forces placed on an equal footing with the NDP when it comes to promoting themselves on television," Kamal added. While reserved on political reform, Gamal Mubarak was highly open and liberal-minded on the economic agenda. Mubarak said the NDP wants to see Egypt evolve into a fully-fledged liberal economy, with the private sector dominating most sectors of activity. "We started by taking concrete steps to reform our customs and tax systems, and further steps will soon be taken to open up to the outside world," Mubarak declared. One NDP member expressed his fears to Gamal Mubarak that "the benefits of the recent customs and tax reform might end up in the pockets of a handful of big businessmen." "We want reforms targeted at human beings, rather than at angels," the NDP member said.
