The ruling party's influential Policy Secretariat is back in action, striving to prove that it is Egypt's most important decision-making body. Gamal Essam El-Din reports The war in Iraq -- with its anti-American protests, anti-government slogans, and vehement calls for a more democratic Egypt -- was tough on the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). The NDP's Policy Secretariat, which had promised to be the country's main engine of democratic reform, chose not to meet during the three weeks of war. According to most political observers, the party was too busy trying to contain public fury against the war to do anything else. The minute Baghdad fell to the Americans on 9 April, however, the NDP was in action again, pushing its influential Policy Secretariat back into the limelight. Between 10 April and last Tuesday, several high-level party meetings took place, including a 17 April gathering of the Policy Secretariat itself, which is headed by , the 39-year-old son of President Hosni Mubarak. has also been busy forging ties between the Policy Secretariat and the NDP's provincial offices. So far he has met with members of NDP offices in Alexandria, Assiut, Daqahliyya and Giza. According to Mubarak, the main objective of these meetings is to establish an open dialogue with the party's grassroots members on all issues. "This is essential so that the Policy Secretariat can better formulate policies that fulfill the needs of the majority of the party's members in particular, and public opinion in general," Mubarak said on Monday. He also said the party's provincial offices would be required to submit periodic reports to the Policy Secretariat on local perspectives regarding the economy, education, health, youth, women and foreign affairs. The increasingly influential role of Mubarak's Policy Secretariat on the country's political life has become a matter of intense debate ever since the NDP's 8th Congress established the secretariat in September 2002. Most political pundits agree that the new secretariat has already become the party's backbone. "It is now clear to all that the Secretariat's influence has become so overwhelming that it has made the decision-making roles of both the NDP's Secretariat-General and the government itself nearly powerless," asserted one observer. Hussein Abdel-Razeq, secretary- general of the leftist Tagammu party, thinks the major objective of last September's Congress was to establish the Policy Secretariat under 's chairmanship. "According to Article 46 of the party's new platform, the Policy Secretariat is invested with sweeping powers ranging from proposing laws to forming affiliated committees aimed at strengthening its role," noted Abdel-Razeq. He argued that these sweeping powers were bequeathed to the Policy Secretariat under the pretext of reinvigorating the party with fresh blood, at the expense of its old guard. Responding to such claims, said it was wrong to think that the government had become powerless in the face of the Policy Secretariat. "The growing prominence of the Policy Secretariat is primarily due to how active it has been ever since the party's congress in September 2002," he said. The secretariat's 17 April meeting, meanwhile, decided that several political reform draft laws would find their way to parliament before it adjourns for summer recess in June. These include measures to scrap 1980's Law 105 on state security courts, abolish the Penal Code's hard labour penalty, and create a National Council for Human Rights. According to NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif, the three bills are part of a wider package of political reform initiatives, which were launched by President Mubarak some time ago. Kamal El-Shazli, the NDP's first assistant secretary-general, also described the proposed laws as a "very progressive democratic step." Although the Policy Secretariat's political reform initiatives will probably easily get the backing of the NDP's overwhelming majority in parliament, the opposition also promises to be quite vocal about what it calls the NDP's double- standards, when it comes to human rights. A case in point is the government's harsh approach towards anti-war demonstrators. NDP leaders, meanwhile, have been arguing that most of those arrested during the demonstrations, including two independent MPs, have been released. The European Parliament (EP) is also amongst the government's detractors in this regard. In a 10 April letter to the People's Assembly, EP chairman Patt Cox accused Egyptian authorities "of detaining hundreds of people in a brutal crackdown on anti-war protesters, including two opposition members of parliament who were reportedly beaten severely by the police." In a written response, People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Surur said on Saturday that the detainees were arrested on charges of committing acts of sabotage. "It is also worth mentioning that most of these detainees were released. Staging peaceful demonstrations is a guaranteed right for the citizens of Egypt," the Assembly's statement said. Opposition MPs frequently criticise Surur for his adamant rejection of the idea of establishing a human rights committee under parliament's auspices. "Surur is an excellent author of books on constitutional liberties and human rights," an opposition MP told Al-Ahram Weekly, "but as parliament speaker, he has never taken a step towards translating [these things] into facts."
