A major step for democracy, say NDP leaders. Another paper tiger, respond independent analysts. Gamal Essam El-Din reviews the ruling party's internal elections The third and final stage of National Democratic Party (NDP) elections ended on Saturday. Since 26 September members in 26 governorates have been voting to fill 780 posts within the ruling party. In a meeting on Sunday, the NDP's six- member steering committee praised the conduct of the three tier elections, which opened on 18 August. "A major turning point in NDP's history, the elections have injected fresh blood into the party's ranks, cemented relations across the party and seen the emergence of a new generation of leaders committed to the NDP's new style of thinking," enthused NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif. The party's Committee for Organisational Affairs, he added, had presented NDP Chairman President Hosni Mubarak with a statistical evaluation of each stage of the poll. The first round, said El-Sherif, saw party members compete for 139,000 positions within 6,756 units at the village and shiakha (part of districts) level. "The vote ushered in a large number of successful young candidates and women. Forty-five per cent of the chairmen of these units are new faces." The second round of the poll, with 10,000 positions up for grabs in 350 districts, began on 17 September and lasted four days. "The turnover of officials at this level almost reached 50 per cent, while a quarter of district office chairmen are new," said El-Sherif. The final, governorate-level round, also saw almost half of elected officials change. Now that the elections are over the ranks of party officials will be supplemented by appointments. "The final shape of the party will be clear by the end of the week, that is a month before the ninth annual congress scheduled for 3-5 November," El-Sherif told reporters. The records of the chairmen of the NDP's provincial offices are currently under scrutiny and "only those who proved successful in rallying support for the constitutional amendments last March and last June's Shura Council elections will remain in place," said El-Sherif. The agenda of the ninth congress, he went on to note, "will include discussions on a series of draft laws aimed at tackling terrorism, restructuring local administration and redrawing the regulations governing university student elections". Zakaria Azmi, NDP assistant secretary- general and chief of the presidential staff, said the elections had been designed to enhance the ruling party's performance on the street. "The NDP is not the party of government but a real party with elected ranks, one in which members compete against each other democratically." Azmi also cited figures to support his assertions. "At the level of village units 182,000 candidates applied, and at the district level more than 13,000," he said. More than 1.1 million NDP members took part in the polls, and during the course of the election Azmi revealed the party had attracted 190,000 new members, swelling its rank and file to more than 2.3 million. The party, he argued, has become increasingly attractive to ordinary citizens now they can see how it has democratised. He also pointed out that for the first time the chairman, political politburo (13 members), and secretariat general (29) will be elected by the congress, adding that the consensus within the party was that President Mubarak should continue as chairman. The statements of NDP leaders, and the figures they quoted, were met with dismay by opposition and independent figures. Salama Ahmed Salama, a leading Al-Ahram columnist, noted that the re-election of President Mubarak as NDP chairman will dash any hopes that the role of president and NDP head will be separated. "We had hoped that President Mubarak would make this separation and become the president for all Egyptians and not just for one party," said Salama. Political analyst Amr Hashem Rabie questioned the figures provided by NDP sources. "We have no way of verifying the statistics given the NDP rejected any kind of impartial monitoring of the poll," said Rabie. Nor is he convinced that the party is emerging as a force on the street. The recent labour unrest in the industrial Nile Delta city of Mahala Al-Kobra shows, he said, that far from exercising influence on the political street the NDP remains little more than a paper tiger.
