Rivalry over voters' hearts between the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and the opposition has begun heating up, months before the legislative polls, slated for late this year. While the opposition was furiously moaning and groaning about the “political monopoly” of the NDP in a conference in Cairo over the past three days and vowing to turn millions of Egyptians against the ruling party, the latter has started a nationwide campaign in part to eclipse the angry reaction of the opposition, according to some observers to win the nation's youth to its side. The campaign, which was launched Monday and lasts for a month, will seek to keep the nation's youth busy attending lectures on Egypt's history and getting involved in several sports and civil service activities. “This campaign is open for all the youth of the nation, regardless of their political affiliations,” said Alieeddin Helal, the chairman of the Media Committee at the party. “The aim is to encourage political and social participation by youth,” he added before giving the go-ahead signal for the new campaign Monday. The NDP has adopted such a campaign this year for the third year in a row. The timing of the campaign, however, gave this country's analysts reasons to link it to the next parliamentary polls. Some of these analysts say the next Parliament will have a major say in who will be Egypt's next president, while President Hosni Mubarak now recovering from gallbladder surgery in Germany has yet to say whether he will seek a sixth term. Racing against the ruling party to win support from citizens along with the opposition parties and the banned Islamist organisation the Muslim Brotherhood is a group of activists who want former chief of the international atomic watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei to run for president in 2011. These activists are actively gathering signatures from ordinary Egyptians for a petition to amend the Constitution to open the way for independent candidates like ElBaradei to run for president. Making matters more perplexing for analysts was an alleged political deal reported by the independent Arabic language daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. Al-Masry Al-Youm cited a deal between the NDP and the opposition Al-Wafd Party by claiming that the ruling party had agreed to allow candidates from Al-Wafd to win some parliamentary seats in the next elections in return for withdrawing support for ElBaradei. NDP officials had quickly denied the presence of such a deal by saying their party would never clinch deals with other parties that might harm the interests of ordinary Egyptians. “Our party makes deals with the people of this country only,” said Safwat el-Sherif, the Secretary-General of the NDP. “Ordinary Egyptians only have the right to pick their own representatives in Parliament,” he told a group of reporters at the launch of the new campaign Monday. Officials at the ruling party speak confidently about the lack of real political competition from opposition. The NDP, according to party records, has a total membership of about three million people. It controls 76 per cent of the seats of Parliament and also 52,500 seats (out of a total of 53,000) in the local councils. “The monopoly the NDP imposes here blurs the lines between it and the executive power of this country,” wrote Fahmi Huweidi, a columnist in the independent Arabic language daily Al-Shorouq Monday.
