Shura poll to put NDP shuffle to the test

By Gamal Essam El-Din
Following the completion of an internal review of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), President Hosni Mubarak decided last week to replace 18 secretaries of party offices in selected provincial governorates. Based on the recommendation of an evaluation committee established three months ago following the party's poor performance in last year's parliamentary elections, this move sees changes to party leadership for offices in Cairo, 10 Delta governorates, six Upper Egypt governorates and South Sinai. Prior to this decision, 60 members of the People's Assembly and Shura Council were appointed to head party district offices in various governorates.
Appointments to governorate headquarters are, for the most part, consistent with the new NDP policy stipulating that People's Assembly and Shura Council deputies are ineligible for the position of provincial secretary. This policy is directed at ensuring that leading party officials can devote all their energies to their party responsibilities. This rule affected eight deputies, namely, Ahmed Habib (Damietta), Hussein Hegazi (Kafr Al-Sheikh), Nabil Mansi (Gharbiya), Hussein Mubarak (Menoufiya), Maher Abdel-Wahab (Minya), Mohamed El-Maghrabi (Aswan), Hussein Megawer (Cairo) and Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud (the Red Sea governorate).
A single exception was made to this policy with the appointment of Ahmed Abdel-Rahman Shedid, a Shura Council deputy, to the position of secretary for the Delta governorate of Qalyubiya. It is noteworthy that Shedid's appointment presents only a temporary contradiction with the policy as his term on the Shura Council ends in April.
The most prominent feature of the shuffle is that 10 of the new provincial secretaries are leading figures in municipal politics, being either current or former heads of their governorate's municipal councils.
New appointees also include seasoned politicos whose careers stem back to the defunct Arab Socialist Union which was established in the 1960s by late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser.
In terms of professional background, the new provincial secretaries include four university professors, three lawyers, three businessmen and two military officers. Those coming from the military are Mohamed El-Ghamrawi (Cairo), and Abdel-Rahman Shedid (Qalyubiya governorate). El-Ghamrawi was formerly minister of military production and is currently the chairman of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones.
According to Kamal Abul-Kheir, the newly-appointed party head for Giza governorate, the selection of party secretaries largely depended on their experience in organisational matters. Also important, said Abul-Kheir, was proven experience enhancing the party's image among the general population. "This is crucial ahead of June's Shura Council mid-term elections," he said, explaining that the NDP was viewed to have lost contact with the masses due to the focus of some of its members on securing personal interests. "This is why I think the major task ahead of us is to make people feel, once again, that we are available to them any time and anywhere," said Abul-Kheir. A former member of the Shura Council, Abul-Kheir has also headed the NDP's Youth Secretariat in Giza governorate.
Beyond the backgrounds of party provincial secretaries, the change in leadership targeted governorates where the NDP suffered unprecedented losses in last year's elections. In these 18 governorates the party lost 190 seats out of its total loss of 276 seats that went to opposition and independent candidates. Worse, four party secretaries in these governorates suffered humiliating defeats in the elections. As a result, speculation was rife during the last three months that these offices would be getting new secretaries.
Commenting on the shuffle, Adel Eid, a prominent lawyer and an independent member of parliament for Alexandria governorate, said that it fell short of expectations about measures that would be taken following the internal review. "With a view to all the talk in recent months about reforming the ruling party, this shuffle is too modest to rescue the NDP from its current and unprecedented political crisis," Eid said. Elaborating on this point, he explained that in less than six months the NDP faced dramatic setbacks with results worse than predicted in elections for both the People's Assembly and the Lawyers' Syndicate.
"These defeats revealed to all that the NDP's popularity has almost dissipated completely. This is why the new shuffle is insufficient to save the party from a third defeat in the upcoming Shura Council elections," said Eid. He added that he hopes the evaluation committee was "courageous enough to bring to the attention of NDP chairman President Mubarak the dangerous structural and organisational weaknesses of the ruling party."
Unlike previous elections in which the NDP easily secured landslide victories, the upcoming competition for Shura Council seats is expected to be the toughest in 20 years. Such a prediction is given added credibility by the Supreme Constitutional Court ruling last year that the council's elections must be placed under the complete supervision of the judiciary. This decision has encouraged opposition parties and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to run for Shura seats for the first time.
But this is not the only matter regarding Shura Council elections that has NDP officials worried. As was the case with the People's Assembly elections last year, many party members have announced that they will run in Shura Council elections as independents -- meaning more competition for the party's official candidates. In Alexandria and Gharbiya governorates, for example, 50 NDP members are expected to compete for just 10 seats.
The Shura Council, which has no legislative powers, is made up of 264 members. Two thirds of these are elected while the remaining third is appointed by the president. A member's term may last up to six years, but half of those elected (88) and those appointed (44) are chosen by lot to lose their seats after three years. Deputies falling in this group are eligible for re-election or reappointment.
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