Counterblasts

Opposition groups staged their own rally as the NDP's sixth annual conference was in full swing, reports Mona El-Nahhas

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"This is Egypt, not Gabon", the title of a conference held by the 6 April Youth group to run parallel to the sixth annual conference of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), made reference to the succession scenario in Gabon, where Ali Bongo took over from his father Omar Bongo, who had ruled the African state for 40 years.

It was, perhaps, a simple case of tit-for-tat, since the NDP, during its conference which ended on Monday, had hardly refrained from criticising the opposition.

Gamal Mubarak, head of the NDP's Policies Committee, denounced the NDP's detractors as people who raised slogans without substance.

"Raising a slogan with no content or details is the simplest thing anyone can do," he told party delegates.

Ahmed Ezz, the NDP's secretary for organisational affairs, chose to rail against the Muslim Brotherhood and the group's Supreme Guide Mahdi Akef.

"Fanatical groups seeking to appear religious do not practise politics. Practising politics does not include forming militant groups at universities... tolerance contradicts with throwing shoes at others beneath parliament's dome," said Ezz.

"We are ready to win and to keep our majority... we are the most influential and the most organised party on the streets... in the coming polls we are not going to offer the opposition seats on a silver platter," Ezz continued.

The opposition were quick to respond. "It is the absence of judicial supervision, the lack of accurate voter lists, and the role money plays in the electoral battle that allows Ezz to speak with such confidence about winning a large majority of parliament seats," Nabil Zaki, spokesman of the leftist Tagammu Party, told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Akef merely suggested Ezz take a stroll in the street to meet the public without his usual contingent of security apparatus bodyguards. "Then perhaps he'd see who deserves the trust of the Egyptian citizen."

Rashad El-Bayoumi, of the MB's Guidance Bureau, insisted Ezz's attacks were simply an old tune being played yet again.

"Such talk does not deserve a reply. It serves only to underline the extent of the NDP's political bankruptcy," said Saad El-Qatatni, head of the MB's parliamentary bloc.

Some commentators interpret the criticism directed against the MB during the NDP's conference as heralding an escalation in the security campaign against the movement ahead of the 2010 parliamentary polls.

"It seems that the state intends to deprive the MB of any seats in the coming polls," suggested independent MP Gamal Zahran.

"Ezz knows perfectly well that the only opposition force that can take on the NDP is the Muslim Brotherhood," MB parliamentary member Hamdi Hassan said, claiming that the NDP was desperate to avoid a free election that would reveal the true balance of power in Egypt.

Ezz's attack, he says, was a pre-emptive move designed to obscure the fact that the NDP monopolises rule by detaining its opponents.

"Describing the opposition as a minority contradicts reality. It is the minority which rules, while the opposition represents the vast majority of the public," Osama El-Ghazali Harb, chairman of the Democratic Front Party, said during the parallel conference.

"I felt they were not talking about Egypt, or at least not an Egypt anyone could recognise," said George Ishaq, former coordinator of Kifaya opposition movement. "They went on and on about the party's achievements which do not exist in reality."

Ihab El-Kholi, chairman of the liberal Ghad Party, argued that although President Hosni Mubarak announced during the opening session of the NDP's conference that the parliamentary polls would be fair, Ezz's comments had revealed the NDP's determination to ensure that the opposition will be prevented from participating in any meaningful way in political life.