the policy once approved in this manner. The President of Egypt, however, rarely needed to resort to referendums except in circumstances where it is a formal requirement, such as initiating constitutional changes. Article 152 was seldom used because there was no reason to do so. The majority of legislation passed through the People's Assembly was initiated by the President, and almost all of the President's proposals were passed by the mandated two-thirds' majority with little to no deliberation at all. Academics and analysts observed that talk of democracy and liberal reforms from Egypt's leaders was spurred by a desire to garner internal and external legitimacy; however, these reforms lacked the substance needed to open the way for meaningful democratic change. Dr Augustus Richard Norton of Boston University wrote in 2005 that: Certainly, the discovery of a democratic vocabulary does not stem from idealistic conversion, but from pragmatic conclusions about the need to relieve pressure and vent political steam, as well as the shrew recognition that democratization wins favour. ... The new language of politics in the Middle East, talks about participation, cultural authenticity, freedom and even democracy. No doubt, the defining flavor of the 1990s is participation. Elections and apparent multi-party political systems offer authoritarian governments this opportunity for "democracy by decree." However, regimes that adopt these (electoral) systems, called competitive authoritarianism or illiberal democracy, "tend to impose a number of constraining conditions in order to ensure that the arena of the political contest remains under their stringent control. The laws regulating the licensing of opposition parties, for example, always demand a public commitment to the existing political order and the substantive acts of the regime." These were the conditions under which the National Democratic Party in Egypt were formed in 1978, lasting until its dissolution on 16 April 2011 by court order. History of the National Democratic Party Gamal Abdel Nasser (1952–1970) Prior to the introduction of a multi-party political system in Egypt, there was single-party rule. Gamel Abdel Nasser rejected the idea of establishing alternative political parties at the establishment of the Republic of Egypt in 1953, instead opting to establish a single-party system in which interest groups were organized along functional lines and co-opted within the framework of an official representative body. This body was known as the Liberation Rally (LR) from 1952–1956, the National Union (NU) from 1956–1962, and the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) from 1962–1976.