Many politicians and activists want members of Mubarak's
dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP) banned from politics to bar them from
a parliamentary election in November. The NDP routinely swept to victory in
rigged votes during Mubarak's era.
The committee said it had approved the Ittihad, or Union,
party led by Hossam Badrawi, who Mubarak appointed as the NDP's
secretary-general in his final days in office as part of a last ditch attempt
to quell protests.
Badrawi resigned from his post in the NDP few hours before
Mubarak was driven from power on Feb. 11 after 30 years.
"This isn't a reproduction of the NDP. Badrawi has been
part of diverse political groups and was an unfavorable figure among the
party's old guard," political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah of Al-Ahram
Center for Political and Strategic Studies said.
The NDP acted more like an institution of state than a
party. Its members ranged from an old guard who had served with Mubarak for
decades to younger business executives who backed the economic liberalization
measures promoted by the president's son, Gamal, who held a top policy post.
Many Egyptians saw it as a body that served the interests of
Egypt's rich elite at the expense of ordinary citizens. Several top party
officials, including the president and his son, are now on trial for corruption
and other charges.
"The revolution happened to kick those people out and
end their influence. We ask that they are not allowed to return to the
political scene so as not to corrupt the coming vote," said Mohamed El-Beltagy,
a senior member of the Freedom and Justice party of the Muslim Brotherhood,
which was banned under Mubarak.
Some 47 new and old parties met Egypt's ruling military
generals on Sunday to call for changes to an election law that they fear will
allow former NDP members to return to office.
An alliance led by the Brotherhood called for voting based
on lists rather than the mixture of lists and individuals now outlined in the
existing law that they fear will give Mubarak's loyalists an opportunity to run.
Badrawi said in statement carried by Al-Youm Al-Saba
newspaper that his party wanted a civil state that respects the separation
between executive, judicial and legislative authorities. He said the group had
a liberal economic program.
Abdel Fattah said the Brotherhood and other radicals could
use Badrawi's NDP background to discredit him but he said Badrawi, known as a
reformer inside the NDP, might draw support from some groups such as Christians
or liberals who worry that organized conservatives could sweep the
parliamentary election.
"The main challenge facing Badrawi is to hold a firm
grip on the party to prevent corrupt NDP members from returning to the
political scene through the party," Abdel Fattah said.
