page_title: National Democratic Party (Egypt)
section_title: NDP under Hosni Mubarak (1981–2011)
hierarchical_section_title: National Democratic Party (Egypt) / History of the National Democratic Party / NDP under Hosni Mubarak (1981–2011)
caption_attribution_description: English: President George W. Bush and Egyptian President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak address the media in Cross Hall at the White House March 5. "We talked extensively today about our efforts," said President Bush of their private discussions. "President Mubarak has a long history of advancing peace and stability in the Middle East." White House photo by Eric Draper.
context_page_description: The National Democratic Party, often referred to in Arabic: الحزب الوطني‎ as the Al-Ḥizb al-Waṭaniy, or the "National Party". It was a centrist political party in Egypt and was founded by President Anwar El Sadat in 1978.
  The NDP wielded uncontested power in state politics, usually considered a de facto single party with authoritarian characteristics inside an officially multi-party system, from its creation until the resignation of Sadat's successor Hosni Mubarak in response to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.
  The National Democratic Party was an authoritarian centrist party. From its inception, it was by far the most powerful of the parties to emerge from the Arab Socialist Union, the former ruling sole party since 1962 and was as such seen as its organic successor. However, in contrast to ASU's strong emphasis on Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, the NDP developed into a moderate centrist party. The NDP was a member of the Socialist International from 1989, until it was expelled in 2011, in response to the revolution.
  The party was dissolved on April 16, 2011 by court order, and its assets were transferred to the state.
context_section_description: Since President Sadat's assassination in 1981, his successor Hosni Mubarak continued to request and obtain the People Assembly's approval to maintain emergency law under the premise of threats of terrorism and violence. Despite the emergency law, political party life during the 1980s was relatively active, with the re-emergence of the Wafd Party, and the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood via alliances and Muslim Brotherhood candidates running as independents. Elections in 1984 and 1987 produced parliaments with opposition representation of about 20 percent. Unfortunately, the combination of increasing Islamist opposition groups and violence by extremist organizations during the 1990s spurred legislation that hurt all Egyptians' ability to express themselves politically via formal institutions or more informal means. The 1993 Syndicates Law, 1995 Press Law, and 1999 Nongovernmental Associations Law hampered freedoms of association and expression by imposing new regulations and draconian penalties on violations. As a result, by the late 1990s parliamentary politics had become virtually irrelevant and alternative avenues for political expression were curtailed as well.
  The Political Parties Committee continued in form and purpose under Mubarak. Only two parties (the National Accord established in 2000 and the Democratic Front in 2007) have been approved by the PPC under the Mubarak presidency. It is possible to appeal a PPC decision to the Higher Administrative Court for approval. Ten political parties under Mubarak have succeeded in gaining legal status through this route. However, that only ten cases in a period of over twenty years have won such court cases indicates that the PPC is a major barrier in obtaining legal status as a political party in Egypt.
  The National Democratic Party and parliamentary politics rebounded insignificance in 2000 as a result of speculation among Egyptians about presidential succession. Mubarak was then 71 years old and had just begun his fourth six-year term in 1999. It appeared to many that Gamal Mubarak, President Hosni Mubarak's younger son, a banker by profession, was being groomed for the presidency. He began taking an increasingly active role in politics, first as a spokesman for business interests and youth as a nonpartisan activist and then later in the NDP.
  President Mubarak announced parliamentary elections for 2000, and he pledged to uphold a Supreme Constitutional Court ruling calling for judicial supervision of elections. Although the 2000 elections were the first to be supervised by judges, and by most accounts somewhat cleaner and more credible than the 1990 and 1995 elections, there were still widespread arrests of Muslim Brotherhood candidates and campaign workers, as well as intimidation of voters outside polling stations. Surprisingly, the NDP suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of independent candidates, who secured more than half of the 444 seats up for election versus the NDP's 39 percent. However, 181 of the independents were "NDP independents" – members who had run in the elections despite not having received the party's nomination. These 181 independents and an additional 35 actual independents joined the NDP after winning, giving the party a combined 88 percent parliamentary majority.
  The poor performance of the NDP in the 2000 parliamentary elections afforded Gamal Mubarak an opportunity to assert himself in party politics. He proposed overhauling the NDP in an effort to make it look and function more like a modern political party rather than a tool for recruiting support for the regime in exchange for government patronage. Michele Dunne, editor of the Carnegie Endowment's  Arab Reform Bulletin, wrote in 2006:
  Drawing on largely the model of the British Labour Party, Gamal Mubarak designed and led a new Policy Secretariat that began to produce policy papers on a wide range of economic, political, and foreign affairs topics. He recruited a circle of young, reform-minded businesspeople and technocrats, some of whom were later placed in a cabinet or par
caption: President Hosni Mubarak
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