The ruling NDP says it is moving towards reform; independent and opposition pundits argue that it should be dissolved altogether, writes Gamal Essam El-Din According to independent and opposition pundits, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) has thus far been unable to grasp the overriding lesson of the war in. That lesson, according to a general consensus of political forces including liberals, leftists and Islamists, is that a lack of liberal democracy, an absence of an active civil society, and wholesale violations of human rights were more responsible for the quick and stunning collapse of the regime in Iraq and the rejoicing of the Iraqis at its demise than the overwhelming military power of the Anglo-American forces. A 20 April statement issued by the leftist Tagammu party announced that, "the fundamental lesson which we all must draw from the war in Iraq is that an agenda of political reform, including wide-scale constitutional and civil liberties, must now be a top priority in all Arab countries in general, and in Egypt in particular." The statement blamed 35 years of tyrannical Ba'athist rule for the Iraqi defeat and the plundering of its riches. "Arab governments must rush to implement reform and greater democracy because the invasion of Iraq creates a precedent that could target other autocratic systems," the statement urged. NDP leaders had responded to similar criticism that had appeared immediately following the NDP congress in September 2002, by saying the party had indeed revamped its image in order to be more appealing to the masses. Last December, Gamal Mubarak, chairman of the NDP's influential Policy Secretariat and the 39-year-old son of President Hosni Mubarak, told party members that the NDP is the only political force capable of leading Egypt into the future. "The party is aiming to maintain its majority in institutions [such as the People's Assembly] and earn people's confidence ahead of the next elections [in 2005]," Mubarak said. Independent and opposition pundits, meanwhile, largely disagree. Although they see eye to eye on a general package of reforms necessary for Egypt's transformation into a fully-fledged democracy, the NDP's fate within that hoped-for democracy remains a matter of serious debate. Some feel that dissolving the NDP altogether is the only way out. According to Hussein Abdel- Razeq, chairman of the Tagammu party's political committee, the NDP must go because it had failed to "adequately respond" to calls for a more liberal political arena and an end to its monopoly on political life. Abdel-Razeq said the overriding lesson which the NDP must learn from the collapse of the Ba'ath party in Iraq, is that single-party systems introduced in the name of national unity and consensus function more as vehicles for their leaders to perpetuate their power than anything else. Amr Hashem Rabie, a parliamentary analyst with Al-Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said 9 April -- the day Baghdad fell to the Americans -- must be engraved in Arab memory just as prominently as the Arab defeat on 5 June, 1967. "Both events must serve as lessons for all Arab rulers that single-party and authoritarian systems are primarily to blame for Arab military defeats and political-economic decay." Rabie said Saddam Hussein and his dictatorial Ba'ath party's downfall had exposed the myth that governing parties in the Arab world, including the NDP, are majority-driven or democratically elected. "These parties were built on fear and opportunism rather than on persuasion," Rabie said. "The lessons we have been learning for the past 50 years -- which Saddam Hussein's defeat helped refresh -- is that people join governing parties (whether they be the old Arab Socialist Union or the ruling NDP) out of opportunistic reasons and fear rather than persuasion," Rabie said, which then provides fertile ground for corruption, political stagnation, and de-modernisation, The Tagammu's Abdel-Razeq said opposition parties have long called upon President Hosni Mubarak to give up his chairmanship of the NDP. "If President Mubarak decides to abandon the NDP," he said, "we think the party will rapidly fall into disarray." Arab Nasserist Party Chairman Diaaeddin Dawoud agreed that the ruling party's majority in parliament stemmed more from the fact that its chairman is the president of the republic, than the appeal of its platform or ideology. "Arab regimes use these so-called ruling parties to both impose their will on the people via rigged or toothless parliaments, as well as act as democratic facades," said Dawoud, who also feels the dissolution of the NDP is an essential step towards real democracy. Others, however, think that Egypt can pursue democratisation even with the continuing presence of the ruling NDP. They, however, stipulate that there must be a complete separation between the government and the ruling party. Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour, the liberal-oriented Wafd party's spokesman in parliament, believes that the NDP's majority in parliament is less a result of popularity among voters than a complete dependence on both the government and state security forces in its monopolisation of political life. Ahmed Abdel- Hafez, another Al-Ahram analyst, thinks the existence of an overwhelming governing party is a necessity right now because Egypt remains a long way away from a balanced Western-style democracy. However, Abdel-Hafez does think "the ruling NDP must transform itself into something closer to the way the Wafd party was prior to the 23 July Revolution. In other words, it must be based on persuasion rather than on opportunism, and be fully in support of a rotation of power via stronger political rivals and the creation of a more balanced parliament," Abdel-Hafez said.
