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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Books Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A younger NDP?
By Omayma Abdel-LatifAhead of next November's parliamentary elections, and in what seemed to be an attempt to reinvigorate the ruling party, President Hosni Mubarak, in his capacity as party chairman, has reshuffled the leadership of the National Democratic Party (NDP), restructuring its political bureau and general secretariat and bringing in new, and more youthful blood to the party's highest echelons.
In the new structure, members of the general secretariat were reduced from 36 to 25, and members of the political bureau -- considered to be the president's main think tank -- will include: Prime Minister Atef Ebeid; Amal Osman, deputy speaker of the People's Assembly; Kamal El-Shazli, minister of state for parliamentary affairs; Ahmed Omar Hashem, head of the religious affairs committee of the People's Assembly; and Edward Ghali El-Dahabi, an appointed MP. Perhaps the most notable change was the exclusion of former prime minister Kamal El-Ganzouri.
Several NDP officials speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, emphasised that the changes spell out real structural transformations within the ranks of the ruling party's top leadership. It is clear that Mubarak wants to see both the cabinet and the party working in tandem toward national economic objectives as well as political reform. According to NDP general secretariat member Mohamed Ragab, the appointment of two businessmen, Ahmed Ezz and Ibrahim Kamel, reflects the party's long-standing policy of "including elements from the business community, since they are part of the country's social forces".
Ragab said that Mubarak's inclusion of the prime minister and 11 cabinet ministers in either the bureau or the general secretariat shows that the president is keen to maintain harmony between the government and the ruling party's leadership. "Another target of the change is to increase the party's efficiency so that it can become more representative of different social groupings," Ragab added.
The exclusion of the interior minister came as a surprise to some, but many believe it is due to the fact that political violence is on the decline. The most remarkable addition in the eyes of many observers was the appointment of six Coptic NDP officials -- a significant increase in comparison to the previous set-up, which had only one. Two Coptic officials have been appointed to the political bureau and Adel Beshai, a Shura council member and American University in Cairo professor who was not previously an NDP member, was appointed to the secretariat. Known as a man who is "never shy to speak his mind", Beshai said of the NDP that "it is a forum where I can express my views on issues and introduce fresh ideas". Beshai believes that Mubarak chose to appoint "those who can make a contribution to what is viewed as the president's central policy-making body".
The appointment of the Minister of Youth Alieddin Hilal and Minister of Higher Education Hussein Kamel Bahaeddin is indicative of a move to devote greater attention to young people, who constitute almost 40 per cent of the population. The appointment of Gamal Mubarak, the president's son and spokesman for the Egyptian-American Presidents' Council, gives this assumption greater weight.
"These figures will be able to provide the party with new ideas, making it more capable of rallying certain segments of the population behind [the NDP's] policies," Sabri El-Shabrawi, head of the human resources committee of the NDP's general secretariat, told the Weekly. The appointments intimate a desire to build a new political generation -- one presumably capable of shaping the party's perception of political reform to include marginalised sections of society, notably women and youth.
Reactions from the opposition are mixed. While some opposition figures are hopeful that the changes will breathe new life into the political scene, the Wafd party's Yassin Serageddin argued that the changes were merely cosmetic and mostly involved "old faces getting promotions". Serageddin maintains that real changes "should be reflected in party policies, rather than the appointment of a few new faces". Nevertheless, Serageddin hailed the appointment of Gamal Mubarak as "a good choice", putting to rest rumours that he planned to establish a new party under his leadership.
Many observers argue that the most important outcome of the changes is yet to be seen. A likely effect suggested by El-Shabrawi is that the new additions will have an impact on the selection of candidates for the November elections. El-Shabrawi called for new criteria to be used in candidate selection.
"Transparency should be the order of the day, because people have the right to know how the selection process is made," he said, arguing that party candidates should have a high level of integrity and be role-models for the younger generation. Candidates will need to have an agenda that encompasses a worldwide outlook -- and they must possess the ability to communicate and mobilise human resources. "Egypt is facing new challenges," El-Shabrawi said, "and the old criteria for selection are no longer valid".
