'Just World News' with Helena Cobban: Problems inside Egypt's ruling party?

'Just World News' with Helena Cobban Info, analysis, discussion-- to build a more just world
« The war anniversary: a poignant Iraqi view \| JWN front page \| New book, 'Re-engage' goes to press; website launched! » Problems inside Egypt's ruling party? Posted by Helena Cobban March 20, 2008 10:26 AM EST \| Link Filed in Egypt Egypt's landmark local elections are coming up April 8. As noted in my 'Delicious' comments over recent weeks, the Mubarak regime has gone to great lengths to prevent representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition parties from registering as candidates. This Reuters report quotes MB leaders as saying that only 498 of the 5,754 candidates they had tried to register had been able to do so. You can get further details of the official obstructionism here. Not all is wonderful for the ruling "National Democratic Party", either. Indeed, it seems to be suffering from an advanced attack of what we might call "Fateh-style internal collapse syndrome." Just today, Al-Masry al-Yawm reports that: -- There has been considerable turmoil within the NDP in various areas, over the choices made for which candidates to run in the elections. Including this: Party members in Zarqa, Damietta and Kafr Saad started to collect signatures to withdraw confidence from Secretaries Nabil el-Daly, Mansour Atwa and Essam el-Sharaydi for ignoring prominent figures and replacing them with others, which they called clear favoritism... NDP Shura Council Member Magdy el-Sonbati has resigned in protest against ignoring his choices. In Aswan, 50 NDP members staged a sit-in at the party headquarters in protest against the party's choices. They demanded the dismissal of Secretary Said Khalaf and Organization Secretary Refaat Abdallah... --In Beheira and Dakahlia unrest among younger members of the NDP has erupted into a full-blown insurrection, with some recent university graduates announcing the formation of an "NDP Salvation Front." -- There is more on the crisis of resignations within the NDP, here. -- The NDP in el-Salam suddenly realized-- and this was after the deadline for registering candidacies-- it had failed to register enough candidates there (!) and that two MB candidates were about to be elected unopposed there... so they quickly (and not entirely legally) threw ten more NDP candidates into that race. I vividly recall an evening when we were in Egypt last year, when we were being hosted by an old friend who is a leading figure within the NDP; and I said to him, "You know, I would love to know what it is that the NDP stands for?" And his only answer was a dismissive, though jolly, laugh. The NDP seems, like Fateh, to have become little more than an (increasingly creaky) patronage machine... And in a time of mounting socioeconomic and political challenges in Egypt, that may no longer be sufficient. « The war anniversary: a poignant Iraqi view \| JWN front page \| New book, 'Re-engage' goes to press; website launched! » Comments Comment from... azazel, at March 20, 2008 12:17 PM: Helena, this always happens to the NDP around election time. The party mandarins make their choices, those who were passed over protest noisily, and some of them end up running as "independent" candidates against the official party slate. In one of the parliamentary elections - I think it was 2000 but may be wrong - only 40 percent of the seats were won by official NDP candidates, with most of the rest being taken by "independents" who rejoined the party after being elected. The NDP is a very large and undisciplined party, and this is a symptom of its indiscipline. It is a crisis, but a perpetual one rather than something new and different. You are right about two things, though - the NDP's only real ideology is power, and it is very much like Fatah. In the 2006 election, some disgruntled Fatah people ran against the official slate in much the same way as happens in the NDP, resulting in many districts having several competing Fatah candidates. Fatah couldn't repress Hamas as thoroughly as the Egyptian government does to to the ikhwan, so this cost them the election. The NDP has the deck stacked much more in its favor, so it is unlikely to meet such a catastrophe in the immediate term. Comment from... azazel, at March 20, 2008 12:24 PM: Helena, this always happens to the NDP around election time. The party mandarins make their choices, those who were passed over protest noisily, and some of them end up running as "independent" candidates against the official party slate. In one of the parliamentary elections - I think it was 2000 but may be wrong - only 40 percent of the seats were won by official NDP candidates, with most of the rest being taken by "independents" who rejoined the party after being elected. The NDP is a very large and undisciplined party, and this is a symptom of its indiscipline. It is a crisis, but a perpetual one rather than something new and different. You are right about two things, though - the NDP's only real ideology is power, and it is very much like Fatah. In the 2006 election, some disgruntled Fatah people ran against the official slate in much the same way as happens in the NDP, resulting in many districts having several competing Fatah candidates. Fatah couldn't repress Hamas as thoroughly as the Egyptian government does to to the ikhwan, so this cost them the election. The NDP has the deck stacked much more in its favor, so it is unlikely to meet such a catastrophe in the immediate term.	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Problems inside Egypt's ruling party?

Posted by Helena Cobban
March 20, 2008 10:26 AM EST | Link
Filed in Egypt

Egypt's landmark local elections are coming up April 8. As noted in my 'Delicious' comments over recent weeks, the Mubarak regime has gone to great lengths to prevent representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition parties from registering as candidates. This Reuters report quotes MB leaders as saying that only 498 of the 5,754 candidates they had tried to register had been able to do so. You can get further details of the official obstructionism here.

Not all is wonderful for the ruling "National Democratic Party", either. Indeed, it seems to be suffering from an advanced attack of what we might call "Fateh-style internal collapse syndrome." Just today, Al-Masry al-Yawm reports that:

considerable turmoil within the NDP

NDP Shura Council Member Magdy el-Sonbati has resigned in protest against ignoring his choices.

In Aswan, 50 NDP members staged a sit-in at the party headquarters in protest against the party's choices. They demanded the dismissal of Secretary Said Khalaf and Organization Secretary Refaat Abdallah...

full-blown insurrection

-- There is more on the crisis of resignations within the NDP, here.

-- The NDP in el-Salam suddenly realized-- and this was after the deadline for registering candidacies-- it had failed to register enough candidates there (!) and that two MB candidates were about to be elected unopposed there... so they quickly (and not entirely legally) threw ten more NDP candidates into that race.

I vividly recall an evening when we were in Egypt last year, when we were being hosted by an old friend who is a leading figure within the NDP; and I said to him, "You know, I would love to know what it is that the NDP stands for?" And his only answer was a dismissive, though jolly, laugh. The NDP seems, like Fateh, to have become little more than an (increasingly creaky) patronage machine... And in a time of mounting socioeconomic and political challenges in Egypt, that may no longer be sufficient.

Comments

Comment from... azazel, at March 20, 2008 12:17 PM:

Helena, this always happens to the NDP around election time. The party mandarins make their choices, those who were passed over protest noisily, and some of them end up running as "independent" candidates against the official party slate. In one of the parliamentary elections - I think it was 2000 but may be wrong - only 40 percent of the seats were won by official NDP candidates, with most of the rest being taken by "independents" who rejoined the party after being elected.

The NDP is a very large and undisciplined party, and this is a symptom of its indiscipline. It is a crisis, but a perpetual one rather than something new and different.

You are right about two things, though - the NDP's only real ideology is power, and it is very much like Fatah. In the 2006 election, some disgruntled Fatah people ran against the official slate in much the same way as happens in the NDP, resulting in many districts having several competing Fatah candidates. Fatah couldn't repress Hamas as thoroughly as the Egyptian government does to to the ikhwan, so this cost them the election. The NDP has the deck stacked much more in its favor, so it is unlikely to meet such a catastrophe in the immediate term.

Comment from... azazel, at March 20, 2008 12:24 PM:

The NDP is a very large and undisciplined party, and this is a symptom of its indiscipline. It is a crisis, but a perpetual one rather than something new and different.