Private doubts

The ruling NDP's bid to muster national support for its new privatisation programme is already encountering fierce opposition, reports Gamal Essam El-Din

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Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin announced this week that the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) will invite major opposition parties to a national dialogue in an attempt to address misgivings about the direction of its privatisation programme. The dialogue kicked-off on Monday with meetings between leaders of the liberal-oriented Wafd party and senior NDP and government officials. On Tuesday the NDP met with the economic committe of the leftist Tagammu party which rejected the programme outright.

On 10 November Mohieldin and Gamal Mubarak, the 44-year-old son of President Hosni Mubarak and chairman of the NDP's influential Policies Committee, unveiled a scheme under which 41 million Egyptians over the age of 21 will receive coupons that can be exchanged for shares in state-owned industries slated for privatisation. Mohieldin said the government will retain majority stakes in companies operating in strategic sectors such as iron and steel, fertilisers and textiles.

The NDP's invitation follows growing doubts over the aims of the scheme. Its most vociferous opponents have been leftist parties, primarily the Tagammu and Nasserists, whose mouthpiece newspapers allege the programme has been designed to increase the popularity of Gamal Mubarak.

Even before meeting with the NDP, opposition parties were already sceptical. Hussein Abdel-Razeq, chairman of the Tagammu's Political Committee, told Al-Ahram Weekly that he does not believe the time is ripe for any fruitful dialogue with the NDP.

"The NDP proposal is too late. It has already drafted a law on privatisation. All it wants now is public and political support."

"Opposition parties are ready for dialogue," Abdel-Razeq continued, "on economic policies as a whole not on individual details". Taking issue with attacks on the opposition during the NDP's recent annual conference, he pointed out the irony of the NDP decrying "opposition parties as weak and failed then seeking dialogue with these same parties".

Gouda Abdel-Khaleq, chairman of the Tagammu's Economic Committee, questions the point of any dialogue when "we are in complete disagreement with the ruling party's economic policies".

"There is a widespread belief among ordinary Egyptians that the NDP's wealthiest businessmen have earned enormous profits from the party's market-economy policies and that the new privatisation programme will once again serve their interests."

In a meeting held last Thursday, the political bureau of the Arab Nasserist Party concluded "the NDP's new privatisation programme is a new political adventure against the interests of the Egyptian people and against the constitution". The bureau's statement went on to "urge all Egyptians to stand against the NDP's new adventure and keep the assets of the people out of the hands of wealthy businessmen and foreigners".

Ahmed Hassan, secretary-general of the Nasserist Party, echoed the concerns of his colleagues. "This dialogue will not change NDP policies which inevitably favour the market economy and aggressive privatisation," he told the Weekly.

Ahead of the opening of parliament's current session on 12 November Mahmoud Abaza, leader of the liberal-oriented Wafd Party, urged the government to impose a brake on further economic liberalisation. "It is very risky to continue with these policies when the world is facing a severe financial crisis," he warned.

Abaza told the Weekly that while Wafd does not object in principle to dialogue with the NDP, "the major obstacle is that other national dialogue sessions have all ended up with the NDP reneging on its promises and exploiting its false majority in parliament to impose its agenda on the opposition."

"A new round of dialogue will not be an exception to this rule. The NDP is as determined as ever to rubber-stamp its new privatisation programme."

Forces from across the political spectrum have joined major opposition parties in casting doubts on the new privatisation programme. Abdel-Gelil Mustafa, coordinator of the Kifaya (Enough) movement, argues that the programme aims only to improve the image of Gamal Mubarak among the middle classes and those on low incomes.

In defence of the new programme, Gamal Mubarak said the NDP had been working on the details for two years and that it constituted an attempt to widen participation in the management of state-owned assets. During the NDP's fifth annual conference Mubarak accused opposition parties of seeking to drag Egypt's economic policies 40 years back in time.

It was Mohieldin, however, who shouldered most of the burden of defending the new programme. The NDP's invitation for dialogue, he said, was an attempt to identify common ground with major opposition parties.

"We do not aim to impose a set agenda on parliament or on political parties. The NDP is not in a hurry when it comes to mustering popular support for the programme."

The new privatisation bill, he said, will be subject to at least a year of public and parliamentary debate.

"It is completely illogical to suppose that we have been working since 2005 to prepare a sweetener for the presidential elections in 2011. Most of what is being said about the political ambitions of Gamal Mubarak belongs to the realm of conspiracy theories." (see pp.5&11)