Elections stalemate

Yemen's coalition of opposition parties refuses to recognise presidential elections results as incumbent President Saleh claims a comfortable win, writes Nasser Arrabyee

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Yemen's presidential elections may spark a political crisis between the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) and the five-party opposition alliance, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP). The JMP has totally refused the result that gave long- serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh 77.17 per cent and their candidate, Saleh's main rival Faisal Bin Shamlan, just 21.82 per cent of a total of 5.3 million votes.

Voting was suspended in a total of 140 polling centres that witnessed violence, according to the country's highest elections panel. Elections- related violence killed five and injured 45 during polling 20 September.

Surprisingly, the political dispute now is not over who won and who lost, but the percentage of votes. According to the opposition's calculations, Saleh's percentage should be less than 70. The JMP claims that the result was set in advance by certain factions in the leadership of the ruling GPC with the objective of making the opposition seem less than it really is.

The Supreme Committee of Elections and Referendum (SCER) announced the result only minutes before the end of the 72 hours within which the results must be announced according to Yemen's constitution. The four JMP members of the nine-member SCER attended the ceremony of announcing the final result. Three of the four said later they had reservations over the minutes of the committee.

The JMP has been threatening action. "We will resort to a new method, in which we will get our people into streets and we will ask the United Nations to send people to count our votes," said Mohamed Qahtan, chairman of the executive board of the JMP. Though they have declared the elections results null and void, the five parties have not decided yet how and when to stage demonstrations. In a statement, they said they would refer back to their leaderships to decide the next step.

While some politicians and intellectuals criticised the call for protests, Qahtan assured critics that, "the protests will be peaceful. We will reject any kind of violence." Ali Saif Hussan, chairman of the Political Development Forum, a Yemeni NGO, remains sceptical: "The JMPs have all the right to defend the exact percentage they got, but they should stay away from exaggeration, and threatening taking to the streets is not a logical option."

Hussan expected that a deal would be struck. "The parties of the political system here in Yemen usually keep negotiating and nagging at each other for long time, but at the end of the day they reach an agreement, because they know each other well," he said. Abdul-Bari Taher, a Yemeni writer, stressed that, "The controversy and disputes over the percentage of each side should be solved democratically."

While describing the elections as an "open genuine contest", a team of international observers has criticised levels of bias in the process overall. "State agencies, especially the police and military, showed overwhelming support for the incumbent president while state resources were frequently used in support of the ruling party," states a report of the European Union Election Observation Mission.

"State electronic media fulfilled obligations to provide access and free airtime to [other] presidential candidates but showed clear bias in its news reporting of the activities of President Saleh and the ruling party," the report added. President Saleh, in a press conference shortly after he was declared winner, promised to rectify any mistakes in the next elections.

"We will take into consideration the remarks of the international observers," Saleh said.

The ruling GPC considers the JMP's refusal of the results as "mere justifications to cover up their overwhelming defeat". "We were all in the street on the day of voting and the street decided through the ballot box," Tareq Al-Shami, chairman of the GPC's media committee told Al-Ahram Weekly.

The JMP was expecting to get double the total vote it officially took according to the elections results. In parliamentary elections in 2003 the five parties of the JMP swept more than two million votes. "So the five parties now should get at least 40 to 45 per cent of the votes, if there is no forgery," Mohamed Al-Sadi, a JMP senior official, told the Weekly.