The ruling National Democratic Party's ninth annual four-day convention ended on Tuesday not with a bang but with a whimper -- or so it would seem -- despite the annual media hype which accompanies the event in the state-run TV and press being, if anything, more feverish this time round. The previously lacklustre NDP emblem was given a fresh look in TV ads with creative video editing emphasising the emblem's component elements: the white stars, crescent and schematised lotus flower. The neo-national songs performed by pop stars -- first produced two years ago for President Hosni Mubarak's presidential election campaign -- were aired again and again on state-run TV, with one or two new artists joining the publicity operation. And while last year's convention boasted the slogan "a second leap towards the future", inevitably begging questions about when the "first" leap had occurred, the 2007 conference chose oddly gnomic "our country is moving forward with us". Cabinet ministers and senior NDP officials regaled delegates with an array of economic achievements, supported by data and impressive statistics, while critics responded with figures of their own showing the spread of poverty, unemployment rates, a deteriorating infrastructure, declining standards of healthcare and education and growing political repression. The political rhetoric, though, was in the end overshadowed by the shocking story of at least 21 Egyptian migrants (104 others are missing) who drowned close to the Italian coast as they sought illegal entry on 27 and 28 October. The few who survived said they had spent eight days without food on the boat. The migrants were from the Kafr Al-Sheikh delta province, close to Egypt's Mediterranean coast and which, like other Nile Delta provinces, has a high rate of illegal -- unsuccessful and successful -- migration to Europe. Over the past 10 years, heart-wrenching stories of desperate young people risking everything to reach Europe where they hope a brighter future awaits have become a fixture of news reports, alarming officials who repeatedly warn against the negative, often deadly, consequences of their actions. When Gamal Mubarak, the NDP's assistant secretary-general and head of the Policies Committee, was asked to comment on the recent tragedy during a press conference at the convention, he said it was an "unfortunate" event and that "there is talk" of trying to research the causes of the "phenomena". He added that those responsible for transporting illegal migrants will face tough measures. The next day the authorities arrested eight men for their suspected role in organising boat crossings to Europe. It is a good step, but more must be done. And how, one wonders, if the press conference is representative of the thinking of the NDP's huge media-hyped congress, can people be expected to relate to all the statistics that purport to show "the country is advancing"? Observers noted significant, if limited, changes in the structure of the NDP during the congress. The chairman is now elected and a supreme committee has been set up whose members can nominate themselves as candidates in the next presidential election in 2011. Yet the "old guard" held on to senior positions, and any grassroots presence at the congress was noticed largely by its absence. Any party congress aims to promote the party that holds it, there is nothing new in that. The most convincing way of promoting any party is for it to deal seriously with the issues that effect ordinary Egyptians. Arresting a handful of people who organise illegal migration is meaningless as long as nothing is done to convince desperate young people that it is better to risk drowning off the Italian coast than remain in Egypt.
