EGYPT: National Democratic Party squabbles

July 7, 2008 8:01 AM PT

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Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party prefers that its squabbles don’t hit the limelight. But the party’s assistant secretary general, Gamal Mubarak, the 44-year-old entrepreneur son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, has conceded that “the government has problems.”

Recent comments by Mubarak, who many believe is being groomed to succeed his father, were meant to improve the image of the National Democratic Party. About 45% of Egyptians live on $2 a day or less, and the party is regarded as an out-of-touch organization of corruption, businessmen and special interests. The party’s policies have led to Egypt’s growing economy and rising foreign investment, but these pluses have not trickled down to the working class and the poor.

Egypt is in a painful transition from state enterprises to privatization. The pressures have caused rifts within the National Democratic Party, especially between Ahmed Ezz, owner of Egypt’s biggest steel factory, and Rashid Mohammed Rashid, the minister of trade and industry. Rashid has tried to strengthen anti-monopoly laws but Ezz, a close associate of Gamal Mubarak, successfully blocked him.

“Any political party has factions,” Gamal Mubarak said at a National Democratic Party meeting. “What’s wrong with that?”

For Egyptians, however, it was another soap opera with Gamal Mubarak caught amid the foibles and ploys of the rich and privileged. The next presidential elections are in 2011. But President Mubarak is frail, and the bickering and cross-purposes within the party show that Gamal Mubarak’s makeover from businessman to statesman is incomplete.

-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

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Babylon & Beyond

Jeffrey Fleishman

Jeffrey Fleishman is a senior writer at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, he was the foreign and national editor. A 2002 Nieman fellow at Harvard University, Fleishman was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing. A longtime foreign correspondent, he served as bureau chief for The Times in Cairo and Berlin, and was previously based in Rome for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He also was a writer on film, art and culture. Fleishman has been a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and a finalist for the Center for Public Integrity’s Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting. He is the author of five novels, including “Good Night, Forever” and “Last Dance.”