The poor dominated this year's NDP congress, if not in person then as the focus of policy debate, writes Gamal Essam El-Din Social justice and protecting the interests of the poor dominated debate at the ninth congress of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), held between 3-6 November. The tone was set by President Hosni Mubarak's opening speech on Saturday. The NDP, of which he is chairman, was committed, he told delegates, to "providing an umbrella of social protection to the poor and limited-income citizens". He also said the party's priorities include improving public services "in such areas as education, healthcare, housing and transport". Mubarak's words were echoed during the course of the conference by senior NDP leaders, with NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif declaring that, "the ruling party strongly believes its success in the next few years will depend largely on its ability to relieve citizens of the economic hardships they currently face". In a keynote speech, the president's 44- year-old son Gamal Mubarak, chairman of the powerful Policies Committee, spoke about "the issues that most impact on the lives of average Egyptian families". "Solving the problems they face is our party's top priority," he said. "The NDP is working at the local level to benefit poor villages and the families of the hard- working people of Egypt. Our basic needs are more jobs, better schools, improved healthcare and basic infrastructure, things our party is working hard to provide." The NDP's decision to foreground social justice during the conference comes in the wake of a summer of protests during which Egyptians have taken to the streets to demonstrate, among other things, against shortages of drinking worker, conditions in public sector factories and the failure to provide adequate housing. Workers' strikes have focussed discontent on the government's privatisation drive and on the failure to translate economic growth into tangible benefits for ordinary Egyptians. "Most Egyptians believe the NDP- supported government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif operates a kid-glove policy when it comes to wealthy businessmen who care only about the market and integrating Egypt into the global economy irrespective of the price the poor have to pay," says Ahmed El-Sayed El-Naggar, an economic analyst with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. World Bank figures suggest that 42 per cent of Egyptians now live below the poverty line, though the NDP contests the statistics, claiming the figure is closer to 20 per cent. "Services and Social Justice", a 77-page report, outlines the ways in which the NDP hopes to alleviate poverty in the next five years and reduce its own estimate of impoverished Egyptians from 20 to 15 per cent. Among its recommendations are decentralising public services in an attempt to close the gap in provision between rural and urban areas, and offering support to schemes to empower rural women and help them into income-generating activities. Social projects should receive greater budgetary allocations, says the report, while the system of state subsidies is in need of a radical overhaul. By the second day of the conference, it sometimes seemed that cabinet ministers were falling over themselves to announce good news for Egypt's poor. Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali claimed that the social insurance system, now being drafted, will offer a pension to all citizens above 65 currently ineligible for a state pension. "Once codified into law, the move will boost many people's income by between 65 and 75 per cent," said Ghali. Ghali, who has often been accused by the opposition of instigating policies that favour the rich at the expense of the poor, insists that the government remains committed to fiscal prudence. In was in this context that Ghali announced a review of subsidies which will "be paid in cash as soon as all citizens have obtained new identity cards and national numbers". Minister of Social Solidarity Ali El-Moselhi chose to focus on the non-urban poor. "Poor farmers and villagers make up half of Egypt's population, and the majority of them lack a source of income," said El-Moselhi. Redressing their problems will be main aim of development projects in the next period, during which funds will be made available for interest-free loans to finance small-scale projects. El-Moselhi also announced that LE7 billion would be made available for bread subsidies, and LE1.5 billion allocated to increasing the supply of potable. Minister of Housing Ahmed El-Maghrabi committed the government to providing 500,000 low-cost housing units in the next five years. "Out of this total," he said, "75,000 have been already built." Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin was keen to deny that the strikes that were such a feature of the summer were linked to his government's pursuit of privatisation. "The strikes that hit Egypt were illegal and have harmed the economy and the profitability of local companies," said Mohieldin. Some NDP deputies, though, are less enamoured of the whole privatisation process. NDP MPs Mohamed Qiwita and Mahmoud Suleiman took Nazif's government to task for the astronomical rise in prices of cement. "The government has failed to take any action to stem the rise in cement prices and it is the poor and those on limited- income who have been hardest hit by the subsequent rise in the price of housing units," said Qiwita. Amid all the talk of revamped social policy political reform took a back seat. Citizenship and Democracy, the report detailing the NDP's controversial legislative agenda, ran to just 17 pages. The party's focus, said the report, was on introducing legislative reforms that would comply with constitutional amendments passed last March. These include eliminating the office of the prosecutor-general and drafting anti- terror laws, upgrading the local administration system, establishing a council for judicial authorities to be headed by the president of the republic and amending the law regulating the elections of professional syndicates. The NDP's legislative package will also include new information and disclosure laws and legislation to establish economic courts, upgrade family courts, and tackle child welfare issues. The anti-terror law, the report continued, will be confined to crimes of terrorism and, somewhat incongruously, drug trafficking. Minister of State for Parliamentary and Legal Affairs Moufid Shehab said on Sunday that, "it is inconceivable that a party that believes as strongly in freedom as the NDP will adopt a law that infringes on freedoms and human rights." El-Sherif stressed that the ruling party is in no hurry to amend the 1956 law governing the exercise of political rights. He was backed up by Mohamed Kamal, the NDP's secretary for indoctrination affairs. "The elections of both the People's Assembly and Shura Council are due in 2010," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "That in itself is sufficient reason not to fast track any changes in the election system." Recent constitutional amendments, argues Kamal, offer legislators reasonable flexibility in choosing an election system without fear of it being ruled unconstitutional. "The NDP will use the next two years to conduct a dialogue with opposition parties on a new election system before 2010," he said.
