Polls apart

Gamal Essam El-Din reports on this week's second stage of NDP elections

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The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) began the second stage of its internal elections on Monday. At stake are 9,900 seats in 330 of the NDP's town and district associations. The poll will close on 21 September and five days later the party will begin the third and final stage of elections, on the governorate level.

NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif has said the entire process is expected to be completed by 3 October, a month before the party's Ninth Congress.

The first stage, which saw party members competing for 138,700 positions in 6935 units at the villages and shiakhas (parts of districts) level, closed on 14 September. El-Sherif said the elections had originally been planned to take place in 7,555 units. The reduced number was, he said, a result of some units failing to meet the 30 per cent quorum necessary for a poll to go ahead. Even so, El-Sherif said, "an estimated 50 per cent [or 1.1 million] of NDP members participated in the first stage of the poll" the ultimate aim of which is to attract new blood to the party's rank and file.

"Around 60 per cent of seats at the village and shiakhas level are now occupied by new faces or by women," said El-Sherif, proof, he added, that the party slogan "a new style of thinking" was becoming a reality.

El-Sherif vouched himself satisfied that the level of competition meant no candidate had been elected unopposed.

"From early on the NDP has stressed that democratising the party's internal ranks can only come about as a result of competitive elections," said El-Sherif.

Following the three-level election the party's ninth congress, scheduled for 3 to 5 November, will elect, for the first time, the NDP chairman, the 13 members of the politburo and the 29 members of the general secretariat. El-Sherif surprised observers, however, by announcing that chairmen of the NDP's provincial offices will be appointed rather than elected. "After the third stage of internal elections at the end of this month President Hosni Mubarak will name the chairmen of the party's 28 governorate offices," El-Sherif told reporters

While senior NDP officials have heaped praise on the conduct of the poll, their enthusiasm is far from being shared by opposition and independent politicians. The elections, says professor of political science and independent MP Gamal Zahran, are no more than an attempt at window dressing. "You must ask yourself," he says, "why it is that minor posts in villages are up for election while major positions, including the chairs of provincial offices, are not."

The NDP's approach to democracy, says Zahran, is schizophrenic democracy. "They want a democratic décor when it comes to trivial matters but refuse to allow a meaningful vote when it comes to electing those higher up the party hierarchy."

Zakaria Azmi, NDP secretary for administrative and financial affairs and chief of President Mubarak's staff, appeared to be pre-empting his own party's claims to be democratising when he announced last week that there was a consensus within the party's rank and file that President Mubarak be elected chairman during the party's ninth congress.

NDP statutes, Azmi pointed out, stipulate that any candidate for the post of chairman must secure the backing of at least 20 per cent of the party's congress before being eligible to run. "All indications are that President Mubarak will be the only candidate for the position of party chairman and that he will be re-elected for another five years," said Azmi.

Azmi's statement appeared to be a response to suggestions that the whole election process had been designed to allow Gamal Mubarak, the president's 44-year-old son, to assume the position of party chairman, or at least NDP secretary-general.

Azmi announcement that President Mubarak will be NDP chairman for five years serves only to underline how much of a joke the party's elections are, says Zahran.

"How can any party claim to be democratic when the results of the poll to elect its most senior official are announced in advance?" asks Zahran. He also points out that under Article 32 of the NDP's statutes, the chairman enjoys sweeping powers that are in essence anti-democratic.

"It gives the chairman the right to nominate eight out of the political politburo's 13 members, the party's secretary-general and assistants, the secretariat-general's members and the chairmen of the party's 13 secretariats," says Zahran. Even during the congress, he adds, it is the party chairman who presents candidates for senior positions and "congress members have little choice but to rubber stamp the party chairman's nominees".

"When the NDP began elections last month it said the poll would provide a lesson in democracy for opposition parties," says Fouad Badrawi, a senior member of the Wafd Party. But what are opposition parties, the leaders of which have all been elected, supposed to learn from a party that is still unable to choose its own chairman?"