CAIRO (Updated) - Talaat el-Sadat, a former lawmaker and a nephew of late Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, said he had accepted to lead the formerly ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), as a Cairo court delayed until June 7 a case to dissolve the party of the toppled president Hosni Mubarak. A group of key figures of the NDP had approached el-Sadat to preside over the party a week ago to succeed Mubarak, who stepped down on February 11 in response to 18-day protests. "I have agreed to lead the NDP in order to correct the path and revive the principles on which the party was founded by my uncle Anwar el-Sadat," said el-Sadat, who is scheduled to hold a press conference about his plans to reform the party. He added that the party would be renamed as the New National Party, and its re-launch would be announced from Meit Abul Kom, a village in Menoufiya, the birthplace of late president Sadat. Days before stepping down, Mubarak appointed Hossam Badrawi as a secretary-general of the party to succeed Safwat el-Sherif, who was dismissed by the former president. However, Badrawi resigned a week later in protest against Mubarak's persistence to cling to power. "My first decisions will be dismissing Mubarak and his corrupt cronies who corrupted the political life in Egypt," el-Sadat said, urging youth, former military and police personnel as well as workers to join the revamped party. El-Sadat, who was once jailed for defaming the military, also invited other political parties, the Muslim Brotherhood and other political groups to attend the re-launch of the party's congress on April 25 near Sadat's tomb in Cairo. "Come and make sure that there will be no place in the New National Party for the dishonest people," said el-Sadat, who did not disclose how he was selected to lead the party. Revealing plans for el-Sadat to lead the once-mammoth party coincided with calls by revolutionaries and most political powers in the country to dissolve the NDP. It also came as a Cairo court had a second hearing in a case to disband it. "A lawsuit to dissolve the NDP, confiscate its offices and freeze its assets will resume on June 7," lawyer and claimant Noura el-Farra said. She added that there were no longer for the NDP to exist. Established by el-Sadat, the NDP has two headquarters in each of Egypt's 29 governorates. Most of these headquarters are originally palaces that were nationalised after the 1952 revolution and used as headquarters for the Socialist Union ��" the only political organisation in the 1960s and 1970s. When the NDP was established, these buildings were handed over to the NDP.
