http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/16/us-egypt-politics-idUSTRE73F11X20110416
Egypt court dissolves Mubarak's former ruling party
By Shaimaa Fayed and Patrick Werr
(Reuters) - An Egyptian court on Saturday ordered the dissolution of former President Hosni Mubarak's political party, meeting a demand of the pro-democracy movement whose protests ended his 30-year authoritarian rule.
The NDP had dominated Egyptian politics since it was founded by Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, in 1978. For many in Egypt, it epitomized the graft and abuse of power that helped ignite the protests which forced Mubarak to quit in February.
Political analysts described the NDP's dissolution as an important step toward a multi-party system in Egypt, which is to elect a new parliament and then a president later this year.
"All the central powers in Egypt of the Mubarak regime, all of them, were under the umbrella of the NDP," Nabil Abdel Fattah of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies Abdel Fattah said.
He said the party had a vast network extending into villages and city neighborhoods that could be used to mobilize people in elections. "I think its infrastructure was very powerful," Abdel Fattah said. "The NDP also had huge money in banks, not just from membership fees, but I think also from businessmen who financed the NDP. The money came from many sources."
Egypt's decades-long ruling party consigned to dust
Gamal Essam El-Din
After 33 years of a stranglehold monopoly on power, the National Democratic Party has been dissolved and its assets sequestrated by the Supreme Administrative Court
According to a report prepared by SAC legal officers, the NDP violated the values and principles upon which it was founded back in August 1978. “The NDP violated articles 4, 8, and 17 of the Political Parties Law enacted in 1977,” said the report, arguing that “while these articles state that political parties should call for democratisation and national unity, the NDP opted to monopolise power, instill social disunity, spread political corruption and abuse of rights and freedoms enshrined in the 1971 Constitution.”
The NDP's despotic practices, concluded the SAC report, spurred the January 25 Revolution.
The SAC report also emphasised that “rather than strengthening the multi-party system, the NDP became interested in disrupting the performance of rival political parties, using the State Security Investigations appartus as a tool to explode political forces from the inside, detail political opponents and pursue discriminatory polices against an important sector of Egyptian society.”
The report also argued that the NDP’s senior leaders exploited their leading positions to accumulate vast fortunes and created an illicit marriage with business tycoons who invaded the party’s ranks for personal and financial interests. “Not to mention,” the report added, “that the NDP’s senior leaders doubled as government officials and parliamentary heavyweights, thus disrupting the principle of separation among powers and causing the proliferation of favouritism and opportunism.”
Mubarak was appointed deputy chairman of the NDP when it was founded by late President Anwar El-Sadat in August 1978. When Mubarak took office on 14 October 1981, only a few days after the assassination of Sadat on 6 October 1981, he was selected as chairman of the NDP. Throughout his 30 years of rule, Mubarak ignored numerous calls from opposition forces to open up the NDP, deciding in 2000 to appoint his younger son Gamal as chairman of the party’s influential Policies Committee and then assistant secretary-general in February 2006.
Gamal Mubarak’s policies, which favoured business tycoons, caused fury among opposition parties and youth-led dissent movements, resulting, eventually, in the January 25 Revolution.
The SAC order also comes four days after Talaat El-Sadat, the nephew of late President Sadat, was appointed chairman of the NDP. It also comes after several NDP senior leaders, including the party’s secretary-general and leader of the old guard Safwat El-Sherif, Zakaria Azmi, the former chief of presidential staff and assistant secretary-general, and Ahmed Ezz, Gamal Mubarak’s right-hand man, steel magnate and secretary for organisational affairs, were remanded in custody on murder and corruption charges.
Σχόλιο:Η απόφαση του Ανώτατου Διοικητικού Δικαστηρίου αποτελεί καίριο πλήγμα για το Εθνικό Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα του πρώην προέδρου Μουμπάρακ. Όντας ο κυρίαρχος σχεδόν μονοπωλιακός παίκτης στο πολιτικό πεδίο, το Εθνικό Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα αποτελούσε το όχημα νομιμοποίησης του εκάστοτε προέδρου (Σαντάτ, Μουμπάρακ) μέσω του οποίου γίνονταν παντός είδους οικονομικές και πολιτικές συναλλαγές εντός ενός στενού κύκλου φιλικών προς το καθεστώς επιχειρηματιών, πολιτικών και συνδικαλιστών.
Πλέον το πολιτικό πεδίο απελευθερώνεται για τη συμμετοχή νέων και παλαιότερων πολιτικών δυνάμεων της Αιγύπτου, το ερώτημα βέβαια είναι αν και σε τί βαθμό ο στρατός θα επιτρέψει τη διεξαγωγή ελεύθερων εκλογών υπό καθεστώς ισονομίας, καθώς η Μουσουλμανική Αδελφότητα παραμένει η πλέον οργανωμένη πολιτική και κοινωνική δύναμη σε επίπεδο διείσδυσης στα λαϊκά στρώματα των αστικών κέντρων.
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