The ruling party has provoked the ire of independent and opposition political pundits by claiming that calls for amending the constitution amount to fomenting instability and unrest. Gamal Essam El-Din reports In the run-up to its first annual conference -- set to take place from 27-28 September 2003 -- senior National Democratic Party (NDP) figures held a series of meetings to review the party's performance over the past year, and outline its plans for the next. On Monday, NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif said President Hosni Mubarak -- the party's chairman -- would address the conference on a number of key issues, including democratisation and modernisation. El-Sherif also said that Gamal Mubarak, the 39-year-old son of President Mubarak and chairman of the party's influential Policy Secretariat, had presented the party with a report on the upcoming conference's agenda. The report, El-Sherif said, "covered all kinds of national issues, ranging from education and population, to health and economy". The Policy Secretariat itself held a meeting on 17 July, where the younger Mubarak said that many of the most important laws recently passed by parliament were the brainchild of the body he heads. "Close cooperation between the Policy Secretariat and the NDP's parliamentary committee was very fruitful in producing landmark laws on labour, banks, telecommunications, partnership with Europe, and human rights," he said. As for the upcoming conference, Mubarak revealed that the secretariat's six committees would be presenting several papers "recommending as many as 50 legislative reforms that need to be adopted in the next period to modernise political and economic life". Mubarak also stressed the importance of Egypt's strategic relationship with the United States and its close ties with Europe. At a later session, Mubarak previewed the results of a questionnaire the Policy Secretariat had conducted to identify the opinions of several sectors of society regarding the issues that should top the party's agenda. The questionnaire also included intriguing questions like, "Why are young Egyptians generally not interested in participating in political life?" The results will be announced at the conference itself. NDP leaders also spoke extensively last week about issues like democratisation, rotation of power, changes in the party's ranks and platform, and the expanding decision-making powers of the party's Policy Secretariat. During a 15 July meeting in Assiut with younger NDP members from professional syndicates, El-Sherif made a startling comment about opposition parties' increasingly vocal calls for amending the constitution. According to El-Sherif, such calls amounted to fomenting instability and unrest. "These calls are rejected because they come at the expense of national stability and unity," he said. Two days later, in an interview with Al- Gomhouriya newspaper, El-Sherif seemed to soften his stance a bit, denying that he had said that calls for amending the constitution had been completely rejected by the NDP. "I said the NDP does not agree with some political activists that amending the constitution must be a top priority at the present time," he said. El-Sherif argued that the existing constitution (ratified in September 1971) provides Egypt with protection from economic and political pressures and endows the position of the president of the republic with the required respect and veneration. "It has provided the president of the republic with the powers required to combat terrorism and protect civilian life from disintegration ... [by] extremist forces," he said. El-Sherif's comments catalysed a hailstorm of anger from independent and opposition political observers. Prominent Al- Ahram columnist Salama Ahmed Salama wrote -- on 20 July -- that "closing the door on initiatives aimed at reforming the constitution amounts to promoting despair." Salama asked whether "the inability to adapt to change, and the fear of political and democratic reforms", would actually only "lead to instability?" The columnist argued that the final say on amending the constitution must not be the exclusive preserve of any one person, even if he was the NDP secretary-general. He also said that the NDP's absolute monopoly on power and its intransigent opposition to political reform had plunged Egyptian politics into passivity, stagnation and uncertainty, blaming the NDP for a political scene devoid of "innovative ideas, frameworks or symbols". Another prominent pundit, Salah Eissa, the editor of the weekly Al-Qahira, issued by the ministry of culture, described the "NDP's so-called reforms as being the result of a process of patchwork". According to Eissa, "the NDP has thus far failed to adopt an immediate, comprehensive and radical programme of constitutional and political reform aimed at turning Egypt into a parliamentary democracy." Perhaps in response to such critiques, El-Sherif said President Hosni Mubarak has always been in favour of adopting "remarkable democratic initiatives" such as releasing political activists from prison, respecting the rulings of the Supreme Constitutional Court, placing general elections under judicial supervision, and setting up a national commission on human rights. El- Sherif said a new electoral law is being prepared in order to rid the political scene of monopolies, and ensure the integrity of elections. According to El-Sherif, NDP reform is based on the principle that "change must begin from within." Later, however, he seemed to contradict himself by saying, "there is no need for a change in personalities," and that, "change is unnecessary as long as party members are still highly capable of devoting themselves to partisan action and committed to the party's ideology of moderation and centrism." At the same time, El-Sherif asserted that the NDP has put an end to "partisan monopolies and hereditary politics, insisting that rotation of power is not the exclusive decision of the government, [but] a decision [to be made] by all the people in general". In fact, the NDP's leadership (including both its older and younger factions) has agreed that the first annual conference will not include changes to the party's structure and ranks. Gamal Mubarak, for one, conceded that, "this [sort of] change is the general congress's job, and not the annual conference's," which means that any potential changes in the party's leading positions will have to wait until the next general congress, in 2007. As for the expanding decision-making power of the Policy Secretariat, El-Sherif said that the government was committed to implementing the policies mapped out by the body. "The government is required to turn these policies into realities on the ground because they reflect the party's basic viewpoints on national issues," he said. Mubarak, meanwhile, said the Policy Secretariat had been highly successful in readjusting the relationship between the NDP and the government. "This relationship is now governed by the fact that it is the party's government, and not the government's party," he said. Not everyone was in agreement with that point of view. In fact, independent lawyer Nabih El-Wahsh has filed a case with the administrative court, demanding that the Policy Secretariat be dissolved. El-Wahsh argued that the secretariat was unconstitutional: "the constitution (Article 138) stipulates that the general policies of the state and the supervision of their implementation are the exclusive preserve of the president and the government," El- Wahsh said. The flurry of NDP preparatory meetings also covered the relationship between Egypt and the United States. On 17 July, Gamal Mubarak said that those calling for the boycott of American and European products were ignoring the importance of forging close ties with all levels of American society. "I really wonder how we expect to boost our exports to America and Europe, or attract greater foreign investments to Egypt, when some say we must boycott these Western societies," he asked. He described a high-level Egyptian delegation's visit to the United States last month as serving the supreme national interests of Egypt in America, and revealed that more delegations will visit the United States, as well as European countries like France and England, in the next few months, with the objective of creating closer relationships with political parties and civil institutions in these important countries.
