National dialogue is off the cards at the NDP's November conference, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The National Democratic Party's (NDP) conference, which opens on 3 November, is expected to foreground several key issues. According to Alieddin Hilal, the NDP's secretary for media affairs, implementing President Hosni Mubarak's 2005 presidential election programme will top the agenda. "This programme," says Hilal, "aims to introduce reforms in a number of areas, ranging from the political to the socio-economic, covering a period up until 2011, or the next presidential election." What has lent the discussion of Mubarak's programme urgency, says Hilal, is the fact that two years have passed since it was announced in 2005. The time is ripe, Hilal believes, that progress towards its implementation be reviewed in the presence of the cabinet and other leading government officials. For this reason, he says, the three-day congress has been extended for an extra day. Hilal indicated that the NDP's powerful Policies Committee, headed by Gamal Mubarak, President Mubarak's 43-year-old son, is currently drawing up the conference's agenda which will include several politically controversial issues. Gamal Mubarak will deliver a review of NDP efforts aimed at implementing President Mubarak's programme in the areas of political reform and democratisation. The centre piece of these attempts was the promulgation of 34 constitutional amendments last March, in addition to legislation amending the laws governing the exercise of political rights, the judiciary, and the regulation of publishing offences. The congress will also debate new draft laws on local administration, student elections and the anti-terror bill. NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif has indicated that the NDP's own internal elections will be up for discussion. "The congress will debate how these elections might further democratisation of the party's internal structures from the bottom to the top, injecting new blood into the leading ranks." Even more significant, said El-Sherif, is that the first day of the congress will see candidates elected to leading positions: party chairman, the 13-member politburo, and the 29-member secretariat- general will all face elections, though El-Sherif insists there is absolute consensus among the party's ranks that President Mubarak will be re-elected as NDP chairman. The congress will also discuss amendments to NDP statutes. Party insiders say eight articles -- from 34 to 41 -- are likely to be changed, with the aim of placing politburo and the secretariat-general on an equal footing. "The powers of the politburo and the secretariat- general will be merged while the six members of the steering office of the NDP's secretariat- general will also become members of the politburo," said one NDP insider. The congress is not expected to call for national dialogue with key opposition parties. In recent months a growing rift has separated the NDP and the official opposition, with the latter increasingly convinced the ruling party pays no more than lip service to the notion of any real democratic process. "The constitutional amendments passed last March showed that any hopes on reaching common ground with the NDP on political reform were misplaced," says Mahmoud Abaza, the leader of the Wafd Party. Earlier this month four key opposition parties (the liberal-oriented Wafd, the Democratic Front, the Tagammu and Nasserists) decided to join forces in pushing for greater political and constitutional reform. A special committee was formed two weeks ago to draft a new constitution and a political and socio-economic programme. In its meeting on 8 October the committee made public what it called "a document for political reform". Formulated by Hussein Abdel-Razeq, secretary-general of the Tagammu, and Wahid Abdel-Meguid, chairman of Al-Wafd's indoctrination committee and a political analyst at Al-Ahram, it states in clear-cut terms that the country's key opposition parties have lost all hope of engaging in any fruitful dialogue with the NDP. Abdel-Meguid told Al-Ahram Weekly that the NDP and the key opposition parties are now walking in opposite directions. "We truly care about the future of this country and we think there should be deep-rooted political and constitutional change, while the NDP insists on maintaining the status quo," said Abdel-Meguid. Abdel-Meguid reveals that the document is divided into three sections. The first addresses what it sees as the main features of the political crisis afflicting Egypt. "It is a result of the ruling party insisting on maintaining the status quo and using an iron fist in dealing with the opposition at the expense of democracy and progress," argue the document's authors. The second section posits possible ways out of the crisis, including the drafting of a new constitution that enshrines a parliamentary-republican system. "There should be a complete separation of powers, strict sovereignty for the judicial authority and complete freedom for political parties, professional syndicates and civil society organisations in exercising political activities," argue the authors. To meet this objective, the document calls for the 1977 political parties law to be revoked and laws regulating the activities of NGOs to be amended. It also argues for an independent judicial commission to oversee parliamentary and presidential elections. The third section of the document focuses on freeing the media from state control. "This includes national newspapers and television channels," says Abdel-Meguid. The document, says Abdel-Meguid, is an amalgam of liberal and leftist beliefs.
