CAIRO: The National Democratic Party is keen on facing all the challenges still facing Egyptians, Gamal Mubarak, secretary general of the party's policies committee, said. Mubarak dedicated the sixth meeting of the Supreme Council to discuss an opinion poll conducted to determine citizens' outlook on public issues. The poll, which has been conducted annually by the party since 2003, was headed by Mohamed Kamal, spokesperson for the part, secretary of education and a professor of political science, and Alia Al-Mahdi, dean of the faculty of economics and political science. The results showed that the government made a few steps in the right direction, compared to previous polls. Twenty-one percent of respondents said they had no loyalty to the government, compared with 29 percent last year, while 29 percent of young respondents said they are loyal to the government, Kamal said. On the availability and quality of government services, 79 percent said the government provides clean drinking water, 65 percent say subsidized bread is available, and 77 percent agree that health care is also available. On the threats facing Arab security, infectious diseases ranked first by 66 percent, followed by the lack of water, the Palestinian conflict, terrorism and the energy crisis. Later this week, Ahmed Ezz, the party s secretary for organizational affairs, said The Egyptian people are living well, and proof of that is the increase in the number of luxury cars, cell phones among citizens. While around 80,000 new cars were sold in 2002, this figure rose to 300,000 in 2008; with middle class citizens comprising 96 percent of the buyers, he said. Ezz criticized the most citizens' pessimistic outlook on some of the local issues despite what he referred to as accomplishments. Most respondents showed dissatisfaction with education. However, the most important issue raised by the poll was pertaining to poverty. While Al-Wafd newspaper criticized the poll, saying that the same opinion poll was conducted by the Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) recently, revealing the approval of 71 percent respondents of government policies. Karam Gabr, chairman of Rose El-Youssef newspaper, pointed out in an editorial published this week that the difference of views between members of the Supreme Council of the policies when discussing the detailed results of the poll is evidence of the integrated system, by which the party operates.
