CAIRO: The National Democratic Party's policy secretariat is in the process of finalizing the party's vision of the constitutional amendments, which would be presented to President Hosni Mubarak and consequently to the People's Assembly and Shura Council next week. And it appears political battle lines are beginning to form. For the first time, members of the country's civil society and technocracy were included in politicians' plans regarding the amendments. Mohamed Khalil Kwaitah, an NDP Member of Parliament, said prominent writers and intellectuals will get their chance to contribute their suggestions to the list of proposed constitutional amendments. But intellectual Milad Hanna doubts the government would let civil society have an effective say in the proposed changes. This talk is merely a headline with no value, he told The Daily Star Egypt. The government has yet to officially announce which articles and paragraphs in the constitution are subject to change and which will remain unaffected. Gamal Mubarak, head of the NDP's policy secretariat, hinted earlier this week that the draft changes are expected to give more power to the prime minister as opposed to the president, while the two upper and lower parliament councils would achieve more leverage. Mubarak also said the electoral system would be beefed up and the role of political parties and women would increase. Articles 76 which regulates presidential elections and article 77, which allows for an unlimited number of presidential terms, have priority for many reformists. Currently the two articles top a list of 20-40 subject to change, but many experts are skeptical of how effective the changes will be. They say constitutional amendments but no one specified which points in the constitution they are talking about. What is it exactly that they are going to change in the constitution? Hanna asked. Are we going to change Egypt from being a socialist country to a democratic country? Are we going to reduce the powers of the president? Are we going to change parliamentary elections? What exactly? Hanna added. Until now all the available statements by the government did not reveal anything, Hanna said, ridiculing the hype associated with the government's announcement to change the constitution. Kwaitah told The Daily Star Egypt that the sessions conducted within the NDP have partly focused on changes to article 30 of the constitution, to reclassify Egypt from a socialist country to state that it is capitalist. Such proposals and others are likely to reverberate loudly in parliament next week, when the 88 Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated MPs protest the government's initiative and push for their own vision of amendments. According to Brotherhood parliament spokesperson Hamdy Hassan, the Islamist group's package of reforms doesn't only represent "the Muslim Brotherhood community but the civil society s vision. Hassan said the Brotherhood has organized workshops to incorporate the concerns of labor and professional syndicates, prominent intellects and political pundits. We need the government to focus on achieving a parliamentary presidency system, clear separation between powers and more space to political parties, Hassan said. He also believes that the new changes should not be approved by a majority voting in parliament but by approval from all sides, including the civil societies, universities and syndicates. We need to organize lectures and debates in universities and syndicates to create a vision. People must get a clear idea of what we need to change, otherwise it will be more like assassinating the constitution than changing it, Hassan said.
