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CAIRO, Nov 3, 2007 (AFP) - Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party kicks off its annual conference on Saturday by putting the spotlight on the country's social problems and alleviating poverty, party officials said.
"President Mubarak has ordered that social issues should form the lynchpin of this year's debates," NDP Secretary General Safwat al-Sherif told the English-language Al-Ahram weekly ahead of the conference.
At issue for the party is growing concern that the liberal reforms championed by the Western-leaning regime have done little to address the needs of the 44 percent of Egyptians who live on less than two dollars a day, according to World Bank figures.
Despite a major programme of economic reforms which have yielded annual growth of 7.2 percent, social inequalities have increased.
"The rich get richer and the poor get less poor but not as fast," Finance Minister Yussef Boutros Ghali acknowledged on Monday.
"We've seen high rates of inflation and increased poverty," Issandr El Amrani, an analyst with the International Crisis Group told AFP. "On paper Egypt is doing well economically but there are big social problems to tackle." Mubarak, who will give the opening speech, will contest the chairmanship of his party for the first time since coming to power in 1981. Previously, as president, Mubarak has automatically assumed the party chair.
But even now there is no doubt about the outcome of the vote among the 6,700 delegates who will assemble in Cairo for the party's ninth conference, as the veteran president faces no challenger.
"Mubarak will be elected unanimously," trumpeted the headline in the state-owned Al-Gumhuria newspaper.
Analysts say they do not expect any new moves to groom his son Gamal for power.
The president who turns 80 next year and has ruled his country for more than a quarter of a century, has always denied any ambition to start a presidential dynasty like that of fellow Arab state Syria where President Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father Hafez on his death in 2000.
But Gamal's meteoric rise up the NDP ranks since his entry into politics in 1995 has prompted charges from the opposition that he is being prepared for succession.
In 2002, Gamal was put in charge of the party's powerful policy secretariat and last year he made the high-profile announcement that after a 20-year freeze Egypt was launching a civil nuclear programme.
This year, however, party officials said they did not expect any change in the top leadership of the party.
"My guess is no dramatic change will take place," senior party official Ali el-Din Helal told a foreign correspondents' briefing.
Press reports say old guard stalwart Sherif, who is also parliament speaker, is set to stay on as party secretary general, while Gamal Mubarak will continue to head the policy secretariat.
With 80 percent of the seats in parliament, the NDP has a firm grip on the levers of power. Main opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, remains officially banned and holds its seats in parliament -- around one-fifth -- through nominal independents.
But the regime remains concerned enough about the Brotherhood's influence that it has launched a major crackdown on its finances and top leadership in recent months.
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Egypt-politics
