Election fever

Yemen's upcoming presidential elections threaten current President Ali Abdullah Saleh's comfortable position, reports Nasser Arrabyee from Sanaa

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Ali Abdullah Saleh

The September presidential elections in Yemen are expected to be more competitive than the country's first presidential elections in 1999 when President Ali Abdullah Saleh competed with only one candidate from his own party. This time, the five main opposition parties have nominated one candidate and pledged to support him in the elections, which they said would result in having "a president for Yemen, not Yemen for the president".

The election fever sparked after the alliance of opposition parties described their candidate, the 72-year-old Faisal bin Shamlan, former minister, as "clean, honest and incorrupt".

President Saleh launched an attack on them wondering why they had not found a candidate with such qualities among their own leaders, since Bin Shamlan is not affiliated to any of the five parties.

"I understand that the partisan leaders looked for another brother to represent them in the presidential elections, saying he is clean, honest and incorrupt. I wonder, isn't there any honest or incorrupt politician among the leaders of these parties?" said Saleh in a military ceremony for graduating police officers held in Sanaa late last week.

Saleh warned against "spastic discourse and bad words" and threatened to respond to parties and individuals by opening files concerning scandals.

"If they [the opposition] go too far across the lines, we'll resort, at a point in time, to open the files of all parties and even the files of individuals," he said. "We want them to have a prudent and wise discourse that does not negatively affect people or national unity."

Saleh accused some of the opposition leaders of not recognising the republic and multi-party system, expecting them to be defeated in the upcoming elections.

"It seems that a lot of the partisan leaders do not know that this is a republican system, and a lot of them do not know that there is a multi-party system and that unification was proclaimed in 22 May, 1990; they do not know that there was a battle in 1994 during which we offered a river of blood to confirm this unity," Saleh said, referring to leaders of the opposition alliance, which include the Islah Party, the Yemen Socialist Party, the Unionist Nasserite Party, the Federation of Popular forces Party, and the Al-Haq Party.

"It's us who have the real interest in the revolution and the republic, and not those who are in a crisis and defeat," Saleh said.

The parliament accepted a total of 64 Yemenis including three women by 10 July, the last day for applications, to vie for the president's post. However, each applicant needs to be recommended by at least 21 members of the parliament (in a joint session of the two chambers) so that he or she can be a candidate for the president's post. At most, four applicants are expected to run for the post, as 60 of the applicants will find it difficult to obtain recommendations.

The four applicants are Ali Abdullah Saleh for the ruling People's General Congress (PGC); Faisal Bin Shamlan for the alliance of the five main opposition parties, known as the Joint Meeting Parties (JMPs); Yassen Abdu Said for the National Council of Opposition, an alliance of 12 small parties which are not represented in parliament; and Abdul-Wali Mohamed Al-Bahr for the Green Party.

However, the success of the September presidential elections, which also coincides with local elections, depends on compliance of the parties to an agreement signed between the PGC and the JMPs late last month.

The agreement contained 11 points to guarantee free and fair elections including the addition of two JMPs members to the Supreme Committee for Elections and Referendum (SCER), making it a nine-member committee. Five members belong to the PGC and four members belong to the five opposition parties.

For the subcommittees in the elections, it was agreed to give the JMPs 46 per cent of the subcommittees while 54 per cent will be given to the PGC. A technical team was also formed to correct the vote register. The rest of the guarantees are concerned with the neutrality of official media, the army, security, public finance, and public employment. Whether these guarantees will be upheld or not in the months preceding the presidential elections and those following is yet to be seen.