1 - 7 March 2001
Issue No.523
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 March 2001 Issue No.523 |
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Strife blights elections
Yemeni opposition parties, claiming serious irregularities in the municipal elections held last week, are calling for new elections and say they will lodge an appeal before the country's highest court to investigate their claims of fraud and annul the declared results.
Violence marked election day on 20 February and helped delay the declaration of results by the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC). According to informed security sources, at least 30 people were killed and 60 injured in election-related violence in one week. Nine people were killed on Sunday, 25 February, in one incident in the Al-Radhama district in Sana'a. The area is known as a stronghold of the Islamic-oriented Islah, or Reform, Party, headed by Sheikh Abdullah Al-Ahmar. Al-Ahmar, until recently a close ally of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his ruling People's General Congress (PGC) Party, is also speaker of the Yemeni parliament.
To the surprise of observers, Islah did not only renounce its alliance with the PGC, but also sided with other opposition parties, including its arch-foe, the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which ruled South Yemen until its union with the conservative north in 1990. However, leading Islah figure Mohamed Qahtan told Al-Ahram Weekly that there was a distinction between Islah's alliance with President Saleh and the PGC. "We are not allied with the PGC, we are allied with the president, because he is the head of the state of Yemen and because of his constitutional and national responsibilities," he said.
According to security sources, the nine people killed on Sunday were victims of clashes between supporters of Islah and those of the ruling PGC. The SEC produced a lower figure of election violence victims, saying only 15 people, including seven policemen, were killed, and 37 others injured. "These incidents were not too many in a country where many people and tribes are heavily armed," SEC chairman Alawi Attas said.
Both government and opposition groups exchanged the blame for the massive violence. PGC spokesmen claimed Islah and the YSP "plotted" before the elections to carry out acts of violence in order to prevent President Saleh's party from winning the vote.
Nearly final results announced by the SEC on Monday did not differ from those of previous elections which had taken place since the union. The ruling PGC came first, followed by Islah and the YSP. A total of 23 parties competed in the first local elections held in Yemen since 1990.
As for the referendum over constitutional amendments proposed by the PGC -- to extend the president's term from five to seven years and that of parliament from four to six, and to allow the president to dissolve parliament without a public referendum -- the SEC said 75 per cent of voters backed the changes, while 20.3 per cent opposed them. The remaining votes were invalid.
Local elections and the referendum over constitutional changes were suspended in 143 of the 2,025 polling stations because of security incidents. Elections in those areas took place on Sunday.
Sheikh Al-Ahmar, Islah's leader, accused the ruling PGC of using the state's power "to marginalise the political parties and to turn them into a mere decoration to claim democracy."
"The ruling party has been trying to attract tribal leaders to vote for it by promising them high posts in return," Al-Ahmar said in an interview published in Al-Sahwa newspaper, mouthpiece of Islah.
A newly-established coordinated council of opposition parties made up of Islah, the YSP, the Nasserites, Baath, Al-Haq, and the Union of the Popular Forces, issued a communiqué on Sunday demanding a new election and referendum under the supervision of a neutral body other than the SEC.
The communiqué said the irregularities, violations and crimes committed during the balloting and vote-counting were enough to invalidate the election and referendum results.
Military units, the communiqué added, interfered with the process of election and referendum, especially in the southern and eastern provinces where the YSP ruled before the union.
"We would like to ask: who is violating legitimacy and exercising terrorism? Is it the party that controls power, finance, and the media, or opposition parties that are subjected to all forms of terrorism?" it said.
President Saleh has insisted on blaming opposition groups for the violence and has warned that the state will not tolerate infringements of the law. Addressing policemen during a visit to offer condolences for their dead, President Saleh blamed the incitement by opposition parties and candidates for the violence. "We will never accept terrorism or any kind of violent acts," Saleh warned.
One of the surprising results in last week's elections was that in Aden, the former southern capital controlled by the YSP for more than 30 years. Of the city's provincial council, the YSP won only one seat, while the ruling PGC won nine, Islah four and independents four. In the capital, Sana'a, the PGC won 18 seats out of 20, while the remaining two went for Islah. Most of the so-called independents have received support either from the PGC or Islah.
Nearly 120 women ran for election, of whom 25 won in both district and provincial councils.
Fighting between the PGC and Islah also affected the SEC itself. Its vice-chairman, Islah member Mohammed Hussan Damaj, withdrew from the committee on 24 February, claiming the whole electoral process was an "official fraud."
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