Gamal Mubarak dominated the meetings of the annual conference of the ruling NDP, fuelling new speculation about his growing role in Egyptian politics, Gamal Essam El-Din reports Gamal Mubarak, the younger son of President Hosni Mubarak, took centre stage at the three-day sixth annual conference of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) which ended on Monday. Mubarak, who is chairman of the party's powerful Policies Committee, joined with other party leaders in attacking the opposition, insisting that the NDP intended to remain "on top of power for the next five years". On Sunday he used a one-hour speech to denounce the opposition and independent newspapers, telling delegates that the hostile press campaigns launched against the party were groundless. The opposition, he argued, was mired in the past. "I want to emphasise here that slogans do not make the future and we will not pay attention to sceptics. We are the party of the majority," he said. He accused the press and some opposition voices of "doing their best to paint a negative picture of the NDP and the achievements of its government" and dismissed press reports that the "NDP's ranks are rife with divisions and that there is a struggle for power between the old and new guard." "They repeat the same allegations every year, refusing all facts and denying the real situation," he said. He insisted that the NDP was "not a party for businessmen". "As a party we are most concerned with generating job opportunities for millions of Egyptians and young people." Mubarak was keen to stress that the party would stand firm in supporting the interests of the poor, particularly small farmers. Leading a session on social development and fighting poverty, he said "the NDP will pay special attention to the poor, orphans and widows and women on low incomes." "My message to citizens in poor villages is that the NDP will never forget about you. You are its top priority," he said. Mubarak foregrounded NDP programmes targeting the most needy, including the issue of 25 million ration cards, increases in basic social safety pensions, and ambitious potable water and sanitation projects. He also promised that the NDP would submit a new law vowed to parliament extending health insurance cover to all citizens. "This is our response to those who allege that the NDP intends to privatise health insurance services," he said. On Monday Mubarak took a lead in discussions of agricultural policy. "The NDP's interest in securing the wellbeing of farmers has not come out of the blue," he insisted. "As a party we have always believed in the role farmers play in national production." In a press conference on Monday night he ducked questions about his leadership ambitions, saying "it is too early to speak about the NDP's candidate in the 2011 presidential elections." "The NDP is not obliged to name its candidate for presidential elections in 2011 now. Nor do I have a personal answer about whether I will run in 2011. I am a member of an institution which respects the constitution, laws and internal regulations." His role, he said, in the next two years "will be focussed on helping the NDP win the parliamentary elections in 2010 and also preparing the party for the presidential elections" a year later. Mubarak refused to comment directly on the names, floated by the media and opposition parties in recent weeks, of non-NDP possible presidential candidates, including Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed El-Baradei, and Nobel Prize winner Ahmed Zuweil. He did, however, heap praise on the 2005 and 2007 amendments of Article 76 of the constitution which allowed political parties to field presidential candidates provided that they have won just one seat in the People's Assembly or Shura Council, arguing that they had made it easier for parties to field candidates in presidential elections. "Amending 34 articles of the constitution in 2007 ushered Egypt into a new era of open and free dialogue about its political future. The fact that some people are raising the names of presidential candidates two years ahead of the elections is evidence of the vibrant political life which Egypt enjoys." He added that, "the amendments strengthened the supervisory roles of the Shura Council and the People's Assembly and helped institute a quota of 64 seats for women in parliament," and characterised repeated calls for Article 77 to be amended to place a limit on the number of terms the president can serve as "illogical". Nor, he said, was there any conflict in the party between the old and new guard. "This is part of the negative picture the opposition is trying to paint of the NDP," he argued. Party delegates, however, were unlikely to have overlooked that in his address to the conference on Saturday, President Hosni Mubarak showered praise on the NDP's younger leaders. "They have a clear vision for the future and propose new ideas to deal with reality and parliamentary elections," he said. Yet when the conference was officially opened on Saturday it was the so-called old guard, men like NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif and assistant secretaries-general Zakaria Azmi and Moufid Shehab, whose faces have been familiar for decades, that were in the majority. The 20 and 30-somethings seemed content to take a back seat, armed with laptops and iPhones. "It is clear that the old guard still holds the reins of power in the NDP," insists political analyst Amr El-Chobki. "They are loyal to President Mubarak and want him to continue to govern Egypt beyond 2011 simply because his remaining in office guarantees their own positions. As for Gamal Mubarak's followers, they are convinced the future belongs to them and that 10 years from now the old guard stalwarts will have disappeared from political life."
