As MPs headed for their summer recess, political analysts were sceptical of the ruling party's talk of sweeping reform. The proof, writes Gamal Essam El-Din, is in the parliament The People's Assembly -- Egypt's lower house of parliament -- began its summer recess on 27 June. While speaker Fathi Sorour and other ruling National Democratic Party veterans showered praise on the assembly's role as a legislative authority and effective government watchdog, independent pundits were sceptical. That doubt was compounded when leading NDP officials stepped up talk of sweeping political reform being on the horizon. Safwat El- Sherif, the party's secretary-general, revealed on 4 July that during the party's second annual conference in September, NDP Chairman President Hosni Mubarak would be announcing a great many new reform moves. "There will be legislative reforms regarding political participation and democratisation," El-Sherif said. El-Sherif, who became chairman of the consultative Shura Council last week, even promised that "amending the constitution would be placed on the agenda of political reforms after democratisation was deepened and important laws regarding elections and parties were modified." NDP Assistant Secretary-General and State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Kamal El- Shazli also indicated that the conference's agenda would include amending both the political parties law (40/1977) and the law on the exercise of political rights (73/1956). El-Shazli said that rather than formulating a new electoral system, the current individual candidacy method would be maintained for the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2005. Leftist Tagammu Party Chairman Rifaat El- Said was unimpressed. The NDP "also announced a list of reforms at their conference last year, but not a signal item has been realised," he said. Said feared the NDP's new reform agenda might again turn out to be "cosmetic", mere political PR in the lead up to next year's presidential and parliamentary elections. Other pundits pointed to the NDP-dominated parliament's lacklustre 2003-2004 session grounds for their pessimism about the NDP's promises. The ruling party abused its parliamentary majority to slash the assembly's supervisory and watchdog roles, they said. While analysts agreed that a diverse set of laws was passed by parliament, they also argued that none of these was aimed at introducing any kind of real political reform. "In this respect," said Amr Hashem Rabie, a political analyst at Al- Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), "majority NDP MPs intervened to block several political reform bills that were drafted by opposition and independent MPs." Rabie said the party also made use of its majority to obstruct any open parliamentary debate on serious political issues such as "the government's reaction to the political reform agenda proposed by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina conference last March". While Sorour had boasted about the number of laws proposed by MPs climbing from 52 in 2002/ 2003 to 71 in 2003/04, only two of these were actually approved. According to Rabie, NDP MPs proposed both the laws that passed, and one of them was undemocratic because it led to a tightening of the government's grip on the appointment of village mayors and district foremen. Analysts were especially critical of the assembly's supervision of the government. While Sorour said deputies performed their roles as government watchdogs with "seriousness, transparency and vitality", thus reflecting their "deep awareness of people's problems and concerns", Rabie and other critics saw matters in a different light. According to the speaker, the assembly devoted 80 per cent of its session time to exercising its watchdog roles, with the remaining 20 per cent left to debating legislative matters. Sorour said MPs submitted 185 questions and 1180 requests for information to cabinet ministers, compared to 134 and 611, respectively, in 2002/2003. Sorour also said deputies took part in 15 interpellations (a more serious level of inquiry involving charges that must be answered by cabinet ministers). While Sorour said most of these matters involved high-profile issues like the dramatic rise in food prices, the flotation of the Egyptian pound, the performance of the economy, pension funds, the proliferation of private monopolies, and the protection of Egyptian monuments, Rabie said that, as usual, the assembly chose not to debate any political matters. He said all the interpellations submitted on thorny issues like high- profile government corruption, torture in prison, and the rigging of parliamentary elections were completely shelved. A case in point was the seven interpellations directed at Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali, which Sorour allegedly manipulated to shield Wali from criticism. Wali decided to answer just one of the interpellations, involving charges of corruption in the sale of state-owned arable lands. The debate, critics say, was clearly orchestrated to polish Wali's image. A 2003 study prepared by Rabie on the assembly's watchdog role showed that Sorour and El-Shazli played a domineering role in manipulating the assembly's agenda to cushion any serious criticism of the government. "The problem is that in recent years, major NDP businessmen have also become influential in deciding what should and should not be debated," Rabie said. These influences were clear in 2003-04, as the assembly took its break without debating a serious report -- prepared by the Central Auditing Agency -- on the monopolistic practices of NDP steel magnate Ahmed Ezz. "On this and other issues, such as Egypt's failure to gain a single vote in its bid to host the 2010 World Cup, the assembly appeared to have lost touch with the public and become completely irrelevant," Rabie said. The 2003-04 session saw the assembly pass 160 laws, compared with 158 during last year's session. Of these, 112 dealt with financial and budgetary matters, and 48 (compared with 34 in 2002/03) covered political and socio-economic issues. Of these, Sorour cited new laws aimed at empowering women (such as the new family courts and nationality laws), and boosting liberalisation (e.g. small-scale enterprises, investment incentives and the commerce laws), as evidence of the session's success. Others saw the unprecedented resignation of 18 NDP MPs -- who were found to have dodged their military service (a basic requirement for running for office) -- as further evidence of the assembly's woes. NDP business tycoon and former chairman of parliament's economic committee Abdallah Tayel was also stripped of his parliamentary membership after being convicted last September of banking fraud and sentenced to ten years in jail. Thirty-three NDP MPs were also stripped of their immunity on grounds ranging from issuing worthless cheques to bullying and thuggery. In an unprecedented, and somewhat telling case, meanwhile, independent businessman and MP Mohamed Farid Hassanein from Qalyubiya resigned from the assembly during the 2003/2004 session. Hassanein said he decided to quit after he despaired of parliament ever seriously working towards reform, or the boosting of Egypt's democratisation process.
