The ruling National Democratic Party is determined to ensure that its MPs toe the party line during this year's parliamentary session. Gamal Essam El-Din reports on the establishment of an NDP whip committee With the date for the opening of the third session of parliament's five-year term less than two weeks away, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) is moving ahead with plans to better steer parliamentary interaction between its MPs and government ministers -- plans that some MPs say will undermine their role in decision-making. Two new entities, a coordination committee and the policy secretariat, are two spearhead the introduction of these new measures. NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif is to chair the coordination committee, whose members will include parliament's majority leader (Hussein Megawer), the NDP secretary for organisational affairs (Kamal El-Shazli), the secretary for policies (Gamal Mubarak) and up to 120 leading party members. The prime minister is expected to chair some of the committee's meetings. The NDP General-Secretariat also approved setting up the policy secretariat and its affiliated 200-member higher council. The mandate of the Policy Secretariat, led by Gamal Mubarak, President Hosni Mubarak's 39-year-old son, is to debate policies, bills and recommendations proposed by the party's General-Secretariat and congress. To prepare for the upcoming session that begins on 13 November, the Policy Secretariat is scheduled to meet this week for three days to plan for the year ahead. Prime Minister Atef Ebeid and some cabinet ministers are expected to attend some of the meetings. In meetings with Secretary-General El-Sherif during the past few weeks, NDP MPs have expressed concern over the role of the two new party bodies, and whether their purpose is to control more closely their performance in the People's Assembly and Shura Council. El-Sherif denied that this was the leadership's intention, while organisational secretary El-Shazli urged that "as elected leaders in their own constituencies, deputies' role is not to head party offices, but rather to devote their time to parliament. They were elected to represent all Egypt and raise national issues not than to voice only the needs of their constituencies." El-Shazli, who this week added the position of secretary for membership to his other party posts of organisational secretary and assistant secretary- general, took up the matter of the role of the Membership Secretariat. This entity, El-Shazli said, would supervise the party's offices in the governorates and the party's newly established parliamentary committee as well as coordinate between the General-Secretariat and MPs. "The secretariat will also be deeply involved in selecting the party's candidates for parliamentary and municipal elections," he added. Ahmed Abu Zeid, former leader of NDP's parliamentary majority, told Al-Ahram Weekly that NDP MPs should focus on the opportunities presented by the membership secretariat and the parliamentary committee. "These two new entities will ensure that the qualified and disciplined MPs will be rewarded, while lax and inept MPs should expect their performance to be subject to greater scrutiny." The new regime inside the party will not stifle the deputies' right to debate issues and bills in parliament, Abu Zeid insisted, but went on to add that all MPs will be obliged to toe the party line while voting. An NDP MP, who asked not to be identified, told Al-Ahram Weekly that he expected that he and his colleagues would feel too intimidated to discuss freely in parliament issues for which the Policy Secretariat had already taken a firm stance. "They said we have to devote our time to parliament and speak for all Egypt. Are we expected to do this by closely toeing the party line?" He also expressed concern that the new parliamentary committee would prevent MPs from recourse to parliament's supervisory instruments, such as directing questions and submitting requests for information to cabinet ministers. Secretary-General El-Sherif said the Policy Secretariat's discussion of national issues would take into account the many dimensions of each topic. "The secretariat now includes an initial number of 125 experts that will later be increased to 200. These people will discuss issues in all domains of life in Egypt." The experts, El-Sherif said, by way of example, would examine the socioeconomic and civil liberty dimensions of a given issue. The scope of discussions that are supposed to take place in the Policy Secretariat has led some party members to speculate whether the creation of the secretariat means that the party's 14 specialised committees are slated for abolition. "What will be left for these committees to discuss if the Policy Secretariat is to be charged with debating all manner of issues in the presence of cabinet ministers and high-ranking officials? I wonder if the secretariat will turn out to be Egypt's de facto parliament," another NDP MP said.
