Mubarak unchallenged for party leadership

CAIRO, Saturday, (AFP)

Veteran President Hosni Mubarak was set to be elected chairman of Egypt's ruling party Saturday at an annual congress focusing on ways of bridging the Arab nation's growing economic divide.

Even at 79, Mubarak's leadership of his National Democratic Party (NDP) is unchallenged by the party's 6,700 delegates, despite the post being put to a vote for the first time since he took office in 1981.

But in the absence of a rival, "Mubarak will be elected unanimously," trumpeted a headline in the state-owned Al-Gumhuria newspaper.

Party officials said this year's conference will focus on social issues amid 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.

"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. 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."

On the organisational level, party officials said there would be no major reshuffle and analysts say they do not expect any new moves to groom Mubarak's 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.

"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.