The ruling NDP's internal elections began this week, with officials asserting that they aim at restructuring and democratising the party, Gamal Essam El-Din reports The first stage of the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) three-level internal elections began on Saturday. Scheduled from 18 August to 10 September, the elections will fill 7,555 positions at the village and shiakha (parts of district) levels. The second stage will be held later in September at the district, town, city and governorate levels, finishing on 3 October one month before the party's Ninth Congress during which the third stage of the elections will be held to fill the positions of party chairman and members of the executive committee (13 members) and secretariat-general (29 members) for the first time in the NDP's 30-year history. The first stage of the elections featured thousands of party members vying to fill 151,100 positions, 25 seats being allocated to each village or shiakha. Five of these seats will be filled by appointment rather than election, the objective being to ensure the representation of Coptic Christians and women, two groups who in the past have been under-represented. The elections, held every five years, are organised in general rallies that have to be attended by at least 30 per cent of the party's membership in each village or shiakha. Cairo, which has more than 150,000 NDP members, includes 411 shiakha divided among 40 districts. Party members in each shiakha elect 20 seats by secret ballot, two of which are reserved for women, two for younger members, and half designated for workers and farmers. Seven of the 25 members are then selected to form the unit's steering committee. Ahead of the elections, NDP officials were active in promoting the three-level process as a progressive step aiming at democratising the party's internal structures and injecting fresh blood into its ranks. Ahmed Ezz, the NDP's 48-year-old secretary for organisational affairs, toured many governorates to urge the party's two million members to participate in both the nominations and the voting, his main message being that young people should fill the party's leading positions. "The NDP's slogan in these elections is 'please young people, move forward to fill the leadership posts,'" Ezz said, urging young people to "push away old members from leading positions and assume responsibility for the party's future." Ezz, a millionaire industrialist, said "the party will not allow some candidates to win unopposed. There has to be fierce competition for all the positions from top to bottom because we want these elections to be a milestone in the restructuring and democratising of the party." To ensure this, the NDP set up an operations centre at its Cairo headquarters to take charge of election monitoring. The centre, staffed by 350 young people, received reports from the NDP's provincial offices that showed turn-out rates and ensured the party's rules were respected. Nevertheless, independent reports have suggested that the NDP's hopes for the elections have not been realised. Reports in the opposition, independent, and even government press agree that turn-out rates were very low and that the NDP's provincial leaders had had to hold "symbolic" elections in many governorates. "The main reason for the low turn-out is the fact that the NDP charges LE30 per candidate for membership of the village or shiakha, and LE150 to run for the position of the unit's secretary-general," said an NDP MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity. These fees, he said, are too high for the party's members to afford, most of whom are on limited incomes. Ezz also admitted that the fees were high, but said they were necessary to ensure that candidates were serious about the elections. Opposition and independent observers also believe that Ezz has been more interested in expelling old-guard members from the party's ranks than in ensuring democratic elections. "Ezz considers these elections to be an ideal opportunity to create a good base of support for Gamal Mubarak at the grassroots level and rid the party once and for all of members loyal to the old-guard leaders," said Gamal Zahran, an independent MP and a professor of political science at Suez Canal University. Ezz is a close associate of Gamal Mubarak, the 44-year-old son of President Hosni Mubarak and chairman of the NDP's powerful Policies Committee. Zahran believes that Ezz aims to ensure that most members at the party's Ninth Congress, scheduled for 3-5 November, are loyal to Gamal Mubarak. "These young people will form the majority of the NDP's congress, and their votes will be extremely important when elections for the party's leading positions take place," he said. "Their votes will be paramount in ensuring that candidates loyal to Gamal Mubarak replace the remaining old-guard people and that they fill the party's leading positions on its executive committee and secretariat-general and even fill the party's chairmanship," he said. "They are a step towards grooming Gamal Mubarak for the post of president." Press reports also show that the first two days of the elections were rife with irregularities. In Arish, capital of the North Sinai governorate, violent clashes took place between the candidates, leaving six seriously injured. The security forces intervened, and the NDP's headquarters in Cairo decided to postpone the Arish elections. In Suez, the NDP's two MPs resigned from the party's ranks, protesting that the chairman of the party's Suez office, Ahmed Abu Nazel, had not abided by the party's rules. Low turn-out rates were registered in the governorates of Alexandria, Menoufiya, Gharbiya, Qalioubiya and Assiut, average turn-out being between 30 and 40 per cent of registered members. Meanwhile, Egypt's opposition parties were sceptical about the NDP's internal elections. Mohamed Sarhan, the Wafd Party MP in the Shura Council, told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "it is deplorable that the NDP elections come at a time when most Egyptians face a plethora of crises, on top of which are the severe lack of drinking water in many governorates, the labour strikes in many factories in protest at low wages, the high rise in fertiliser prices, and the shortage of wheat supplies." "The NDP has been completely absent from dealing with any of these crises, and instead of facing up to them it has decided to organise another round of sham elections to the dismay of most Egyptians," he said. The elections were "more a manifestation that the ruling party lives in isolation from the daily concerns of ordinary citizens than a real experiment in democratisation," he said. Rifaat El-Said, chairman of the leftist Tagammu Party, said that the NDP's stipulation that candidates pay to stand in the elections meant that poor and limited-income brackets were excluded. "This is a party that cares primarily about the rich and that has never cared about democracy in more than 30 years," he said. In response, Gamal Mubarak lashed out at the country's opposition parties, assuring students at Helwan University south of Cairo last week that the party's internal elections were a first step towards full democracy in Egypt. "These elections and other steps will make Egypt one of the most democratic nations in the world in less than 10 years," he said.
