The NDP just wants you to love them. Really I think people should give the National Democratic Party a break. Really, it's unfair the way that party's been treated. Its members can't help that they belong to the largest and most powerful party in the country. They can't help it that nothing gets done in this country unless the party allows it to. They can't help it that the NDP is, essentially, theu only game in town. What is it that makes people pick on the NDP? It's probably just accumulated jealousy - the same reason that people like to pick on Paris Hilton, merely because she's so incredibly beautiful and talented. Oh yes, and rich. But nothing the NDP does seems to be good enough for the people. Take the annual NDP convention, which was held earlier this month. Members slaved to make that convention a success, all so that they could provide a better future for Egypt and its people. But did people pay attention? No, for some reason, they noticed merely that the convention inconvenienced everyone who wasn't actually attending. But really, so what if people couldn't drive past the International Conference Center in Nasr City - traffic blockades are common in any country. The fact that it took people up to three hours to travel between Heliopolis and the downtown and Giza areas was unfortunate, but it was only for three days. Cars stalled in the heat, children cried and ambulances wailed desperately and uselessly, looking for a way to transport their very perishable cargo. It's all terribly unfortunate, of course, but one must understand that it may be necessary to inconvenience a few in order to serve the majority. Egyptians are used to being inconvenienced. We're used to being treated as if we're secondary considerations. There's a phrase in Egyptian colloquial Arabic that has no equivalent in English; "maghloub a'ala amru - it translates roughly into someone who has no control over their fate. Seven millennia of feudal rule and foreign occupation have cowed us into accepting the literal and figurative leftovers of life. Egyptians, however, are essentially a nation of farmers and you can shove a farmer around, sometimes, but you can't fool him. We have approximately a half century of learning not to take the NDP (in all its reincarnations) at face value. The beautifully produced television ads and billboard advertising were all admirable, but at a time when political alternatives are fast becoming a reality, the NDP needs to work on regaining people's confidence. So far, they don't seem to be making inroads. Take the events of the last few weeks. Events slid off to an inauspicious start with NDP member Hossam Badrawi giving an interview to Al-Wafd and saying that he thought Gamal Mubarak would make a great president. Al-Wafd ran a correction soon after clarifying that this was merely his personal opinion and not one held or promoted by the party. That's roughly the equivalent of the Mufti giving a fatwa and then saying that it was based on his personal opinion and had nothing to do with God. Badrawi is an intelligent, highly articulate and, apparently, highly ambitious man. He is a member of the inner circle at the NDP. He doesn't have a right to a personal opinion on anything other than personal matters. To many, it looked like a none-too subtle method of the testing the waters, a litmus test for public opinion on Gamal Mubarak's applying for what's starting to look like the family post. It was probably unnecessary on a number of levels. Firstly, Gamal Mubarak has already stated, on numerous occasions, that he has no interest in running for office, or indeed, in political power. However, he's managed to link that with a meteoric rise in the party; he's currently head of the Policies Secretariat and effectively the number two man in the party. Secondly, it's unlikely that someone of Badrawi's obvious intelligence needed to test the waters to discover how the Egyptian public feels about Gamal's ascension. Generally speaking, it doesn't like it much. The objection isn't so much to Gamal Mubarak, who by most accounts is an intelligent, capable man with a keen interest in social and economic reform. It's the idea of hereditary succession. Why, people wonder, did we ever bother to get rid of the last monarchy if we were just going to have another one? What kind of reforms are we preaching if the system ensures that no one's ever going to have a shot at the brass ring? Gamal may be a bright young man, but what about all those other bright young people - the ones that haven't yet fled the country in desperation, that is? Another point that is making people deeply suspicious is the list of amendments to the constitution that the NDP is planning on pushing through. Of course, under normal circumstances, parties don't push through amendments - parliaments do. But since Egypt's Parliament is overwhelmingly NDP-controlled (almost 70 percent of the 454 seats are snugly occupied by NDP members) the distinction is something of a moot point. Here, the government (mostly NDP) puts forward amendments and laws and motions and the Parliament (mostly NDP) ratifies them. It's so incestuous that the occasional resulting idiocy is to be expected. Before the convention, the NDP had announced that it was planning to put forward amendments to seven articles in the constitution. Some of them are disturbing in the extreme and aren't likely to generate any confidence in the party. The first and most serious deals with an amendment to Article 88 of the Constitution. This article deals with the terms and conditions members of the People's Assembly must fulfill and electoral rules. It specifically states that the ballots must be supervised by 'members of the judiciary organ.' For anyone who's had their head in the sand over the past year, the judiciary has been proving a wildly rotating thorn in the government's side. Elections were a main point of contention, with the judges insisting on their right to supervise elections. Two were tried a few month ago for alleging corruption and violence over the last Parliamentary elections. One was cleared and the other was censured. The amendment that the NDP is trying to push through is an interesting one. Apparently mindful of exhausting the poor judges the NDP is suggesting that they no longer be the sole supervisors. The party suggests other supervisors, whose names will be put forward by the government. Those suggested supervisors will then be ratified by the People's Assembly. Grammatically speaking, of course, that sentence should read; Those suggested supervisors will then be presented to the People's Assembly for ratification. However, as we've already mentioned, the chances of that list not being ratified is roughly akin to the chances of George W. Bush making 'Man of the Year' in the Middle East. There's one proviso to this neat arrangement - the supervisors can't be independents. The sheer ludicrousness of this appears to have escaped policy-makers at the party. If the supervisors are not judges and they're not independent then they must have a party affiliation. Since the only bloc capable of presenting even a token objection is that of the Muslim Brotherhood - and the Muslim Brotherhood officially does not exist and therefore has 88 members running as 'independents' - that leaves us with NDP members. Independents are also going to be shoved out of the running in municipal elections, apparently. Although the party has made no formal statement, one of the amendments being offered is to article 162, which deals with those municipal elections that the government 'delayed' several months ago. It isn't a particularly subtle move - if you ban independents you ban the only real source of opposition to the NDP, the Muslim Brotherhood. This then is the new face of political reform in Egypt - when in doubt, eliminate. Competition is a word for children in schools and athletes who get paid vast sums of money to provide entertainment. Apparently, someone feels that Egyptians do not need to choose their governments, only to accept them. Considering the struggle for political and social reform that has been fermenting over the past year or so, this attitude indicates one of two things: The first is that party policy-makers are entirely disconnected from their voters and from reality as a whole. The second is that they realize perfectly well that their actions will be met with suspicion and disapproval and that they don't care. It's not a great way to earn our trust.
