MPs gear up for a fray

NDP elders are keen for parliamentary affairs to continue in the vein of sessions past. But fireworks are expected from the opposition. Why? The US war in Afghanistan, naturally. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
Yesterday, the People's Assembly began its new session. But there, hopes the ruling party, novelty will end. Senior officials of the National Democratic Party (NDP), which holds 85 per cent of seats, are worried that the US strikes against Afghanistan will stir anti- American sentiment among the assembly's members, notably the 17 deputies linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Observers believe the NDP will, therefore, take pains to keep other parliamentary matters under control.
Signs are the NDP may succeed. During yesterday's procedural sitting, Ahmed Fathi Sorour was re-elected as assembly speaker: for the 12th year running. His two deputies, Amal Othman and El-Sayed Rashed, were also re- elected for the fifth consecutive year.
Nor did other things change. Contrary to earlier expectations, Rami Lakah, an independent MP and businessman, was not stripped of his parliamentary membership in yesterday's sitting. The assembly, reacting to a 27 August ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court, postponed its decision on Lakah's future until 17 November. The court had said that Lakah, 38, should not have run for election on the grounds that he has dual nationality. For the moment, though, Lakah stays.
As does Sayed Mashaal, minister of state for military production. The Supreme Administrative Court surprised political observers last week by quashing an earlier ruling by Cairo's Administrative Court that Mashaal be stripped of his parliamentary membership. The Supreme Administrative Court declared that Mashaal had registered correctly for election in South Cairo's district of Helwan, and so his membership was valid. The court's ruling supports Speaker Sorour's contention that the assembly should not decide whether deputies should be barred until after the Supreme Administrative Court publishes final rulings. Over the next three months, the court is expected to rule on the validity of the membership of as many as 22 deputies.
There will be some changes, though. The post of parliamentary majority speaker is vacant, as Mohamed Mahmoud Ali, speaker in the last session, has asked to be replaced. Strong competition for the post has raged, primarily between Hussein Megawer, MP for South Cairo's Maadi district and former secretary-general of the NDP Cairo office, and Mahmoud El-Sherif, a former local administration minister. Another candidate is Ismailia governorate's MP Ahmed Abu-Zeid. Abu-Zeid was majority speaker in the outgoing Assembly (1995-2000). Last year, Abu- Zeid was appointed chairman of parliament's Arab Affairs Committee.
There will also be the usual competition for the chairs of parliamentary committees. Maher Abaza, a former electricity minister, has quit the chair of Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee (a post he held in the first session). Mustafa El-Feki, a former manager of President Hosni Mubarak's information office, is his likely replacement. The chairs for the committees of Economic Affairs, Proposals and Complaints, Local Administration and Health and Environmental Affairs are also likely to be replaced.
Opposition and independent deputies slammed the NDP's insistence on monopolising all leading parliamentary posts on the grounds that it is the majority party.
Nor is everyone enamoured of the NDP's endless rehearsals of the same play. Abdel- Moneim El-Oleimi, an independent MP for El- Gharbiya governorate's city of Tanta, told Al- Ahram Weekly that the public thinks parliamentary debates routine and frustrating. "The people find parliamentary debates boring and fruitless because they see the same unchanging faces and rules," El-Oleimi said. El-Oleimi himself has presented several bills to parliament; none has ever been approved. El-Oleimi has also submitted an urgent memo to Speaker Sorour, asking for an immediate change in many of the articles of the Assembly's internal regulations. He said that the articles restrict freedom of expression and violate the principles of equal opportunity in participation in parliamentary proceedings.
If any winds of change do stir this parliamentary session, they are likely to blow from independent and opposition MPs hostile to US foreign policy. Their complaints are expected to be vociferous. Hamdin Sabahi, a Nasserist MP, told the Weekly that he thinks assembly deputies will unite in condemning American "aggression" against Afghanistan. "The Nasserists strongly condemn the 11 September terrorist attacks against America, but they think that fighting terrorism requires a radical change in American foreign policy and a concerted international effort, rather than a fierce war against a poor Islamic nation," Sabahi said. He also believes the collective Arab defence pact (signed in 1951) should be invoked if America attacks an Arab country such as Iraq.
Independent MP Ayman Nour argued that it is America's massive and substantial support for Israel that led "Osama Bin Laden and his accomplices" to attack America. "Killing Bin Laden will not stop terrorism against America," he said, "but an American decision to stop Israel's Nazi policies against the Palestinians will uproot terrorist and extremist trends," he concluded. He agreed with Sabahi that opposition and independent deputies will not hesitate to lash out at US policies. "We will warn that the longer the war against Afghanistan continues, the greater the danger that it [the war] will be considered a war against Islam," Nour said.
Gamal Heshmat, the most prominent of the Muslim Brotherhood's 17 deputies, thinks that Speaker Sorour will be unable to restrain MPs from voicing anti-US policy sentiments. "This will be pretty difficult for Sorour, especially as America's military commanders plan a protracted war which is likely to continue through Ramadan and may expand to include other Arab countries," he said. He added, "We cannot keep silent while innocent Muslims fall victim to US aggression in the month of Ramadan."
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