CAIRO: The inheritance of political power from President Hosni Mubarak to his son Gamal is being paved by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and the People s Assembly (PA) will be used to rubber stamp the succession, head of the opposition Karama Party Saad Aboud told Daily News Egypt Monday. Aboud, who is a current MP, said, There is a plan to transfer power from the current President Hosni Mubarak to his son Gamal. They want power to be inherited quietly with no opposition in parliament. The MP s comments come in the wake of repeated speculation that the current session of parliament will be dissolved and elections brought forward to facilitate the succession. Additionally, Al-Dostour has repeatedly reported that the ruling NDP Secretary of Organization Ahmed Ezz is insisting that seven current opposition and independent MPs not be allowed to run in the next parliamentary elections. The MPs in question are Mustapha Bakry, Talaat Al Sadat, Gamal Zahran, Hamdein Sabahay, Saad Aboud, Alaa Abdel-Moneim and head of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc Hussein Ibrahim. Ezz responded to these allegations in a letter to the paper which was published last week. In it he said that he did not possess the authority to select MPs from his own party let alone opposition parties. Commenting on Ezz s response, Aboud said, There will be forgery in the next parliamentary elections to remove any honest opposition. They want an opposition they will strike a deal with to act as window dressing, but we are ready for the confrontation. Yet again a prominent member of the NDP has come out to quell speculation about the dissolution of the People s Assembly which has been widely reported on in recent weeks. This time it was NDP Information Secretary Ali Eldin Hilal, who told Al-Haya satellite channel Sunday night that those propagating this speculation were deluded and that talk of bringing forward the presidential elections were also delusions . Local reports have been stating that a presidential decree would be issued to dissolve the PA in a matter of days due to pressure from the policies committee of the NDP, which is headed by Gamal Mubarak, in order to facilitate the succession of power. Local press reports positing the idea of dissolving the PA have iterated that the NDP would take advantage of recent proposed amendments to the PA law to bring elections forward. The reason given was to rubber stamp the nomination of Mubarak's son, Gamal, as the senior Mubarak would step down before the next presidential election scheduled for 2011. Hilal said that there is currently no constitutional need to dissolve the PA and on the two previous occasions President Hosni Mubarak had disbanded the assembly came in the wake of rulings by the Supreme Constitutional Court. PA Speaker Fathi Sorour said last Wednesday that he was unaware of any decision to dissolve the PA and that the necessity for dissolution may or may not exist. "Preparing for surprises is a normal thing for any political party, especially as the constitution gives the head of state the right to dissolve the assembly without a referendum, Sorour said, "so it is natural that there is speculation about it. "What is not natural is for some to say it will happen within days, he added.
