No pressure
Senior NDP officials vehemently denied that American pressure was playing a role in the party's recent political reform initiatives. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
This week, three leading officials from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) rebuked allegations that the party's recent political reform initiatives were motivated more by American pressure than by a genuine need for political openness and increased democratisation.
The statements emerged in the wake of US President George W Bush's much-ballyhooed 6 November speech advocating a major US push for more democracy in the Middle East.
Speaking to journalists on 13 November, Gamal Mubarak, the 40-year-old son of President Hosni Mubarak and chairman of the NDP's influential Policy Secretariat, said that all reform initiatives, be they political or socio-economic, stem from a purely indigenous need for democratisation. "We proposed inviting opposition parties and civil society associations to a wide- scale dialogue with the NDP in an attempt to reach a national consensus on how to turn these needs into a reality on the ground," Mubarak said. Mubarak said his secretariat's "Egypt and the Outside World" committee is also interested in conducting a dialogue with the US and Europe. "We want to communicate with these powers and keep them abreast of the latest reform movements in Egypt."
In an answer to a specific question regarding Bush's view of Middle Eastern political reform, Mubarak wondered why some people insisted on assuming that foreign powers were pressuring Egypt to embrace reform initiatives. "Foreign pressure can never set the reform agenda we want or the priorities we seek to realise in the next period," Mubarak said.
According to Mubarak, the NDP's newly announced "Citizenship Rights and Democratisation" position paper includes basic guidelines on political and democratic reform. "A major NDP mission in the next few days is to translate these general guidelines into detailed programmes and legislative amendments," he said. Mubarak indicated that the dialogue, in its final form, would be expanded to include all sectors of society, including civil society leaders. "We are still in a preliminary stage, but the dialogue will later be expanded to represent all sectors," Mubarak said.
NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif also emphasised that the ruling party's recent reform initiatives were not a concession to any Western power. "These initiatives are inspired by the Egyptian people's needs," said El-Sherif, who was addressing the Shura Council on 12 November. Joining forces with El-Sherif, Shura Council Speaker Mustafa Kamal Helmi said Egypt's first parliament was established in 1866, and its first political party recognised in 1907. "I wonder what others were doing when Egypt embraced democracy at such an early stage. We do not need others to tell us what democratic ideals we have to embrace," Helmi said. He added that "this does not mean there is no ceiling for democracy in Egypt, but it means that it is Egypt which decides when and how to lift this ceiling."
Independent Shura member Mohamed Farid Zakaria, meanwhile, bluntly criticised America for meddling in Egypt's domestic affairs. "I'm referring to the US ambassador's repeated interventions in local affairs," Zakaria said. Rifaat El- Said, representing the opposition leftist Tagammu Party in the council, said, "democracy is not a commodity that can be imported. We need an Egyptian-Egyptian battle to regain a full-blown democracy."
During a meeting organised by the NDP's Higher Policies Council, El-Sherif said accusations that the proposed national dialogue has a secret agenda were false. "We believe that the NDP and all other parties are in one boat. The era of the one-party system is over, and we now believe that decision-making must be based on partnership," said El-Sherif, who explained that preliminary meetings with the chairmen of five opposition parties were completely transparent and sincere. "We told them about the new challenges Egypt is facing, and all of them agreed that Egypt could never bow to any kind of pressure," El-Sherif said.
El-Sherif also said, during a meeting with a group of Arab journalists on 13 November, that "there will never be a dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood." According to El-Sherif, the dialogue is meant to serve as a forum through which the NDP and the legal opposition can discuss political reform. "The Brotherhood is not a legal party, but an outlawed organisation. We can not change the constitution to have parties based on religions," El-Sherif said.
That announcement immediately provoked indignation. Mohamed Mursi, the Brotherhood's spokesman in parliament, wondered how the NDP could justify conducting a dialogue with such marginal parties as Al-Umma and the Democratic Union, while ignoring a major force like the Brotherhood. "This," Mursi told Al-Ahram Weekly, "provides us with a sign of the kind of democracy they want. They want a democracy tailored to their needs."
Parliamentary Speaker Fathi Sorour was the third NDP official to distance the party's reform initiatives from Bush's comments on the Middle East. According to Sorour, democracy is a globally recognised ideal. "That fact has inspired some to think it only has one applicable form throughout the world, which is untrue because democracy has several forms that differ from one country to another," Sorour said.
He also admonished global powers not to exploit democracy's noble ideals in order to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries. "The democratisation of international relations requires that world powers stop tampering with the sovereignty of countries. Global disputes must be settled via international organisations," Sorour said.
Opposition MPs tended to disagree. Mohamed Farid Hassanein, the Nasserist Party's spokesman in parliament, said the best strategy to deflect Bush's pressure was to speed up democratisation. "The opposition has long been urging the NDP to embrace political openness, instead of doing so as a result of American bullying. We hope, however, that they are sincere this time and there will be no new foot-dragging on reform," Hassanein said. "Things must begin with a scrapping of the Emergency Law, the release of a lot of innocent prisoners, and preparations on the ground for a real democracy based on rotation of power." According to Hassanein, adopting this kind of reform agenda was the best way to avoid Egypt being humiliated by foreign powers and the pressures that result from the country's need for economic assistance.
Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour, the liberal Wafd Party's spokesman, said he hoped that the national dialogue would represent a new page in Egypt's political life. "The Wafd Party hopes that the proposed national dialogue will be successful, and that its recommendations will be enacted by parliament into watershed and meaningful legislative reform. We hope this dialogue will be frank and sincere, revealing that the NDP is really determined this time to achieve political reform and convey a message to the outside world that Egypt is leading this region's march towards democratisation and the spreading of freedom's ideals," Abdel-Nour said.
