Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Political Islam in Yemen:
Whither the Islah Party?
DANIEL T. MAHONEY III
Master’s Research Paper
Advised by Professor Charles F. Dunbar
Submitted April 13, 2009
© 2009
Daniel T. Mahoney III
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I owe many thanks and an inexpressible debt of gratitude to my advisor,
Professor Charles F. Dunbar, who introduced me to Yemen in the spring of 2008.
I would also like to thank my family – Rosemary, Daniel, James, Christine and Karen – for all
their love and understanding throughout this process.
And thank you to a former B.U. grad student, Representative Harriett L. Stanley, who has been
an exceptionally supportive boss these last two years.
iii
ABSTRACT:
Previous to unification in 1990, political parties were outlawed in both North and South Yemen.
In the North, the General Popular Congress (GPC) was the “political organization” of the regime,
which ostensibly represented the interests of all Yemenis. In the South, it was the Yemeni
Socialist Party (YSP) that ruled. Upon unification, political parties were made legal and a multi‐
party system was inaugurated. The Islah Party was formed shortly after the unification, and
was a grouping of the more conservative members of northern Yemeni regime. Made up of
tribal, religious and business interests, Islah was instrumental in helping the President Salih
regime assert dominance over the entire country by 1994. Since then, however, the party has
been increasingly marginalized by the regime leading to a complete break between the two by
2005. By 2008 Islah, as the leader of an opposition coalition called the Joint Meeting Parties
(JMP), was able to take advantage of a confluence of economic, ecological and security crises
affecting the regime to aid in their success to have elections scheduled for April 2009
postponed for two years. While this victory is the first of its type in Yemen, and shows that the
regime is in a weakened state, the designs of Islah are not necessarily the overthrow of the
regime, but an equal place at the table facilitated by a more transparent electoral process. As
events are quite fluid in the country at the time of writing, one can be only cautiously optimistic
that these goals of the opposition will be granted in the time allotted. The alternative may be
that Yemen becomes a failed state.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Abstract …….……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… iv
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… vi
Chapter One ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 1
Chapter Two ……………………………………………………………………..……………………………………………… 24
Chapter Three ………………………………………………………………………..………………………………………… 40
Chapter Four ……………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………. 52
Annex ……..……………………………………………….…………………………………………………………………….... 62
Footnotes ……..…………….………………………………….……………………………………………………………….. 65
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 76
Paper Proposal ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 83
v
vi
INTRODUCTION
Ali Abdullah Salih faces the greatest challenge to his rule in his more than three decades as
Yemen’s authoritarian president. A country heavily dependent on oil revenue, Yemen has seen
the recent price per barrel plummet with a concomitant slashing of its annual budget.1
Corruption is rampant. In the north there are signs that the fifth war in the country’s northern
province of Sa’ada, unilaterally ended by the regime last summer, is about to break out into a
sixth.2 In the south there is a growing dissatisfaction with perceived economic marginalization
that has led to armed clashes, bombings, and deaths at the hands of security forces. To further
exacerbate the situation, there have been an ‘unprecedented’ number of terrorist attacks in
the country during 2008, culminating in the January 2009 announcement that Yemeni and
Saudi al‐Qaeda groups had unified and would operate out of Yemen.3
In the past, Salih has had success in overcoming a wide variety of foes and daunting
political and economic challenges at home and abroad and has been very successful in making
himself by far the most consequential leader the country has known since the 1962 revolution
that overthrew the Imamate. On the heels of infrastructural development, his regime was able
to extend its reach into previously autonomous regions during the 1980s.4 In 1979 He created
the General Popular Congress (GPC) – a political ‘organization’5 that brought all the influential
vii
in Yemen to the political table: modernists, technocrats and influential tribalists; even exiled
former presidents Abdullah al‐Sallal and Abdul Rahman Yahya al‐Iryani. A decade later Salih
would play a large part in creating a multi‐party political system upon unification of the two
Yemens that would ultimately extend his reach across the whole of unified Yemen.
At the same time, Salih has also enjoyed success in his “near and more distant abroads.”
Though he was met with early resistance by Saudi Arabia at undefined northern and eastern
borders, Salih was still able to able to build a good relationship with the US as a result of his
partnership with Ray Hunt and the Yemen Hunt Oil Company. Mr. Hunt’s company discovered
oil in Yemen in 1984. In 1989, the President seized on the opportunity created by the end of
the Cold War to engineer the unification of north and south Yemen and was successful in
maintaining that unity in the face of a 1994 Saudi Arabian‐sponsored secession by former South
Yemeni leaders.6 In 1990, Yemen and Saudi Arabia finally reconciled their difference over the
border between the two countries.7 Salih made great strides in repairing a greatly damaged
relationship between Yemen and the U.S. that resulted from Yemen’s tacit support of Iraq in
1990‐91. Soon after September 11, 2001, he and his former prime minister engaged in their
own ‘shuttle diplomacy’ with Washington D.C., declaring their support for the U.S. ‘War on
Terror.’8
The Yemeni Grouping for Reform, hereafter referred to as Islah, emerged as a part of
Salih's grand political design upon unification of the two Yemens in 1990.9 With the legalization
and proliferation of political parties at unification, Islah’s creation was essentially just a peeling
off of the most conservative GPC members by which Salih and his regime hoped to counteract
viii
whatever influence the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) – the former ruling regime in the South –
had at unification. As an ‘Islamist’ political party, though dominated by conservative tribal
members personified by Islah’s leader Sheikh Abdullah bin Hussein al‐Ahmar, there was a deep‐
seated animosity towards the ‘godless’ members of the YSP. This ultimately gave political
coverage to the Salih regime as it declawed that party. After the civil war of 1994, there may
have been an expectation that Islah would become the permanent ‘loyal opposition.’
In 2005, Islah decided it was no longer prepared to play the role of a permanent
opposition. Today, Islah is entering its fourth year of united opposition to the Salih regime as de
facto head of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP). At this crucial crossroads, it faces the choice of
either remaining with the old Salih‐dominated system or further entrenching itself in
opposition. In late February, Salih’s GPC and the Islah‐led JMP agreed to postpone
parliamentary elections (scheduled for late April 2009) for another two years.10 Brought about
by international pressure and the united opposition of the JMP,11 the two‐year hiatus increases
the likelihood of a resolution of electoral disagreements in favor of the opposition. It will also
allow more time for Islah to capitalize on the continuing ineffectiveness and corruption of the
Yemeni regime.12 As the Yemeni ship of state lists, Islah now has ample time to consider
whether to abandon ship.
As mentioned previously, many scholars and observers believe Yemen may be fast
approaching failed‐state status along the lines of Somalia.13 Can it be avoided? It is within this
context that the role of Islah will be considered in this study. To that end, the aim of this paper
will be to address three interconnected questions regarding Islah: (1) Will the party be able to
ix
maintain its split with the Salih regime and his GPC? (2) Will this break have the effect of
breaking the authoritarian rule of Salih’s regime? and (3) Will the outcome be the dawn of real
political pluralism in Yemen?
The paper consists of four chapters. The first chapter will deal with the history of Islah up
to the parliamentary elections of 2003, covering a wide historical period from Islah’s origins to
its first true, though tentative, split with the regime. The chapter will describe how Islah’s
growing exposure to other political tendencies, coupled with the regime’s efforts to marginalize
it as a political party, inevitably pushed it into the oppositional camp.
Chapter Two will speak to the current state of the party, paying special attention to the
period after the summer of 2005 when Islah made the fateful decision to decisively ally with the
JMP. Much of this chapter’s focus will be on the JMP, as Islah’s ability to maintain its split with
the regime is directly related to the preservation of this alliance. Another reason for addressing
the alliance as a whole is because the constituent members, for the most part, have been quite
adept at containing party differences when considering the broader issues at stake in Yemen.
We will conclude this chapter by looking at the current political crisis surrounding the now
postponed parliamentary elections, scheduled for April 27, 2009 before being postponed this
past February, making clear the dangers to both regime and opposition in what Gregory
Johnsen terms an “electoral game of chicken.”14
Chapter Three will look at the perennial chaos that is Yemen. The chapter will contain a
survey of the current crises contributing to the instability of the Salih Regime: political
stalemate, war, secessionism, Islamic radicalism, economic and ecological disaster. And it will
x
seek to explain the role that the Islah‐led JMP plays in mitigating, or stoking, these problems.
We will also show how Islah’s relationship with the opposition – especially in regard to the
instability in the South – has benefited them through exposure to political problems they may
not have considered otherwise. A positive effect of this political learning may be an expanded
political support base.
Chapter Four will contain the conclusion. It will demonstrate that, while the JMP “coalition
is extremely fractured,”15 lessening their chances of breaking the authoritarian rule of Salih’s
regime; in fact, Islah offers the best hope for effecting significant political change in Yemen
today. As recent events show, such as the postponement of parliamentary elections as a result
of unified opposition to the regimes business‐as‐usual approach, a different future may be in
store for Arabia Felix, one that most scholars are skeptical of; namely, the dawn of real political
pluralism in Yemen – with Islah at the helm.
xi
CHAPTER ONE
THE EARLY YEARS
PRELUDE TO THE UNITARY STATE:
Throughout the 1970s, there were both ongoing discussions about unifying North and
South Yemen, as well as partisans of either regime seeking to topple the other. In 1979, soon
after the ascension to the presidency of Ali Abdullah Salih, the southern based National
Democratic Front (NDF), essentially a part of the PDRY’s ruling party’s apparatus,16 “launched
border skirmishes with the northern regime, in part with widespread if secret support of
northerners” in an effort to forcibly unify the two countries under the PDRY flag.17 The NDF
was ultimately defeated as a result of support for Salih by an informal group of conservatives
and Islamists known as the Islamic Front.
The Islamic Front was made up largely of Muslim Brotherhood members and conservative
tribal leaders. It was supported by Sheikh Abdullah bin Hussein al‐Ahmar, and was supplied by
the United States via Riyadh at a time when the United States was eager to strengthen relations
with Saudi Arabia.18 As Schwedler notes in Islam, Democracy, and the Yemeni State, “the
willingness of Islamic Front members to fight for the regime stemmed from their established
1
ties and their view of the South’s socialists as a common enemy. The armed struggles also
cemented the Islamic Front’s relationship with the North’s President Salih, who had taken
power in 1978.” When Salih launched the GPC in 1982, Islamic Front members, who would
found Islah eight years later, played important roles.19
In The High Water Mark of Islamist Politics? The Case of Yemen, April Longley supports the
view20 that the GPC was created in the 1980s as “a catch‐all, corporatist party of the political
center” with the “ability to stifle competition by absorbing competitors.”21 And regardless of
its current iteration as a political party, it still remains an ‘umbrella’ for a variety of political
philosophies, and has traditionally been able to elude opposition “partly because it can buy
supporters and partly because Salih is an expert at cooption and inclusion.”22 In fact, Salih is
such a successful authoritarian ruler, that Sheila Carapico could write that “the top leadership
in Sana’a in 1995 was virtually identical to what it had been in 1985, with the addition of only a
few self‐declared Islamists and a couple of token pro‐Sana’a socialists.”23
Around the same time that Salih’s regime crystallized, Yemen was also fast becoming a
recipient of oil revenues, workers’ remittances and increased economic aid from abroad.
Looking back, William Burrowes would echo the sentiments of Eva Bellin, who said
governments with access to rents usually paid themselves first,24 commenting in the Middle
East Journal that “the state quickly, and for the first time, became a principal source of wealth
and private gain for the well‐placed and fortunate few. As a result, the system has evolved
largely into a special variant of oligarchy, a kleptocracy – i.e. government of, by, and for the
thieves.”25
2
Many recipients of this largesse, from conservative tribal leaders to Islamists, would soon
form the political party central to our study: Islah. As Sarah Phillips reports, “Zaydi republicans
like Salih and Ahmar [Sheikh Abdullah] relied on Sunni Muslims, particularly the Brotherhood,
to counter threats from the formerly Marxist south. Yemeni politics are not religious sectarian
divisions per se, but are based on a complex web of tribal, social, religious and politically
expedient alliances.”26
President Salih ran North Yemen in a decentralized way with the support of the tribes,
Islamists and the military.27 As mentioned, Salih’s GPC was more of an umbrella for various
political trends within the YAR than a political party with a set ideology. Though the GPC would
begin to develop along party lines after unification, the government of the North was basically
an autocratic regime joining with another, the South’s YSP, led by President Ali Salim al‐Bidh,
under the condition of a transition to democracy.28
PROMINENT ISLAHIS:
Sheikh Abdullah bin Hussein al‐Ahmar and the al‐Ahmar family have played a prominent
role in the History of Yemen. His father Hussein Bin Nasser Al‐Ahmar was the paramount
sheikh of the Hashid, the strongest Yemeni tribal confederation and, until the 1950s, allies of
the Imamate. In 1959, Sheikh Hussein and his son Hamid were executed by Imam Ahmed after
Hussein spearheaded a tribal alliance that failed to topple the Imam.29 As Burrowes relates,
they were executed “despite the traditional rules of hospitality and safe‐conduct for
negotiations” making the “Hashid leaders and, in particular, Shaykh Abdullah bitter enemies” of
the Imamate.30 By the 1960s, Sheikh Abdullah – now paramount Sheikh of the Hashid – had
3
risen to prominence for his role in the revolution. In 1969 he was elected to chair the National
Council for Yemen Arab Republic; which went on to write the North Yemen’s permanent
constitution.
While Sheikh Abdullah lost some of his influence in the early 1970s, he regained much of
his prominence when President Salih came to power in 1978. He served on the President’s
Consultative Council from its foundation in 1979, and in 1982, became a member of the GPC’s
Permanent Committee until Yemeni unification in 1990. Upon unification of the two Yemen’s,
Sheikh Abdullah formed the Islah party, and in 1993 was elected to parliament where he was
elected Speaker in the first elections of unified Yemen. He would lead both Islah and parliament
until his death in December 2007.
Sheikh Abd al‐Majid al‐Zindani is a major advocate of radical Islam in Yemen. In Cairo
during the late 1950s he was exposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and “became interested in
the relationship between science and the Quran, which is often termed al‐i'jaz al‐'almi, or the
scientific wonders of the Quran.”31 During the 1970s he rose to prominence as the “head of the
state agency responsible for moral guidance” and as a founder of the Yemeni Muslim
Brotherhood in North Yemen. He and fellow Muslim brothers were also “seized on as a
counterweight to the NDF” about this time by then president Ibrahim Mohamed al‐Hamdi, who
appointed al‐Zindani as ‘Guide.’
In 1983, Zindani was made the Minister of Education, a position he did not hold long as he
upset many people. It was under his tenure and with his support, along with Salih and Sheikh
Abdullah, that ‘scientific institutes,’ backed by Saudi funding, opened and began spreading
4
Sunnism across the country as a counterweight to the socialists.32 Marginalized politically and
in exile throughout the 1980s, his political fortunes revived again in the 1990s when he was
persuaded by Salih to return from Saudi Arabia, where he had been for the greater part of 1979
through 1993, with the promise of a seat on the powerful five‐person Presidential Council.33
Upon his return, he also became the head of the ‘Islamicist wing’ of Islah.34
As Gregory Johnsen writes, “In the political arena [Zindani] is a frightening man, who has
advocated violence and destruction for those who disagree with him.”35 He was a mentor to
Osama bin Laden, whom he met when a teacher at the Institute for the Scientific Inimitability of
the Quran and Sunnah. The institute was based at King Abd al‐Aziz University in Jeddah, and
was the site from which Zindani recruited Saudis and Yemenis to fight in Afghanistan against
the Soviets. In 1994, it was his contacts with former ‘Afghan‐Arabs’ that aided Salih in
defeating the south’s attempts at secession.
Muhammad Qahtan, Muhammad al‐Yadumi and Abdul Wahab al‐Anisi represent the
moderate Muslim Brotherhood wing within Islah. All three are party intellectuals who occupy
administrative positions within Islah, and “were most commonly cited for their pragmatism by
both Islah and non‐Islah members of the JMP.”36 Qahtan is a founding member of Islah and
currently leads its political office while serving on its Shura Council. More than al‐Yadumi or al‐
Anisi, he is notorious for his sharp critique of both the GPC and Salih.
Al‐Yadumi is a former member of Salih’s security apparatus who went on to become the
first editor of al‐Sahwa – a newspaper funded by the Muslim Brotherhood at its foundation in
1985 and currently Islah’s party paper. He is a long‐time member of Islah’s political bureau who
5
went on to serve as the party’s secretary general until February 2007, when al‐Anisi, the party’s
first secretary general, reassumed the role.
Al‐Anisi was considered the “third of Islah’s formal leaders,” after Sheikh’s Abdullah and
Zindani. In 1995 Dresch and Haykel would write that he “was regarded at all points as enjoying
excellent relations with the president's associates.”37 This is exemplified by the fact that, when
badly defeated in 1993 parliamentary elections, Salih gave him a seat on the Council of
Ministers. After the civil war of 1994 Salih would elevate him to the post of First Deputy Prime
Minister – the highest post ever held by an Islahi.38 Currently, his closeness to the regime is in
question. Instrumental in tying Islah to the JMP alliance, he recently finished a one‐year term
as head of the JMP.
ISLAH AND THE REPUBLIC OF YEMEN, THE FIRST FOUR YEARS:
Soon after the unification of Yemen, there was a proliferation of new political parties: “the
unification agreement of the new Republic of Yemen (ROY) lifted the official legal ban on
opposition parties. Following this action, several groups “split from the GPC and formed their
own parties.”39 Chief among these was Islah. Depending on the source, the party was
comprised of:
6
reality, “Islah sees itself as the representative of the moderate part of the religious civil society
rather than an Islamic movement that aims at implementing its conservative theological
doctrine.”45 Salafis are, by‐and‐large, outside Islah. “Most Islamists within the Islah party are
7
reformers” and have argued the compatibility of Islam and Democracy.46
As Paul Dresch and Bernard Haykel observe in Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and
Tribesfolk in Yemen:
To call Islah a fundamentalist group was never accurate. More to the point was
that Islamists who favored direct action were found both inside and outside
Islah. Whether particular groups or individuals are within or without the party is
usually impossible to say‐for Islah's leaders as much as for anyone‐since criteria
of membership are loose, but several groups and persons straddled a boundary
that in part defined Islah's identity.47
Muslim Brotherhood reformists were in charge of ideology and had primary influence on Islahi
policies.48 They held, and continue to hold, key administrative posts and promulgated ideology
for Islah, maintaining wider support than the extremists, such as Zindani, who traditionally have
more resources.49
Though conservatism may have brought tribes and Islamists together under the rubric of
Islah, Islamists generally oppose kinship networks upon which tribalism is based – and Yemen’s
Islamists don’t form a bloc.50 Instead, “Islah contained members of several differentiated
groups holding many shades of opinion, from rejection of all parliamentary forms to nothing
less than constitutional pluralism. If the phrase be allowed, Islah formed a broad church.”51
And while the core of its ideology was, and remains, Islamist, Sheikh Abdullah’s tribal element
lent it political coverage in beginning as a result of its ties to Salih regime:
The tribal component of Islah always has added an element of hard power to
the Muslim Brothers’ core. Shaykh ‘Abdullah al‐Ahmar is often considered the
second most powerful man in Yemen. He can rally an army and bring thousands
of votes. ‘Abdullah, along with his sons and other tribal Islahis, has helped to
8
Islah’s political program would come into view in the lead‐up to parliamentary elections in
1993. Predictable Muslim Brotherhood slogans such as ‘Islam is the Solution,’ and ‘The Qur’an
and the Sunna supersede the constitution and the law’ were a staple, as were slogans
promising the implementation of sharia and the rejection of secularism. Their political
manifesto declared support for the “peaceful transfer of power through elections and focused
on the centrality of the Islamic concept of Shura.”53 In effect, “it presented itself as the
conservative party of traditional values” and, while basically an Islamist political party, “glossed
over the real differences within and beyond the party among Wahhabis, Salafis, the Muslim
Brotherhood and other tendencies.”54
President Salih and his GPC supported the foundation of Islah as a counterbalance to the
YSP, who were seen as the main threat to the GPC in 1990. They were also a counterbalance to
Yemen’s Zaydi forces as they espoused classically Sunni ideas.55 As Eric Watkins reports, Islahi
leaders were discreet partners in Salih’s plan to dismantle the YSP even as Salih agreed to the
merger of the two Yemens based on shared power between the GPC and YSP and a three year
transitional period leading to elections. “Salih undertook a separate and secret relationship
with the fundamentalist al‐Islah Party, aimed at securing the demise of his political partners
from the South and giving him full control of the newly founded state.”56
9
Islah was co‐led by Sheikh Abdullah and Sheikh Zindani. The glue that kept these two
together (Sheikh Abdullah being classified as a ‘cowboy conservative’ by Sheila Carapico,
Zindani as a ‘doctrinal puritan’) was their shared “common antipathy to certain traditions
associated with the imamate.” Along with Salih, they were “identified as Saudi clients” who
“both prospered under the Salih administration” and “despised communists and Westerners.”57
Sheikh Abdullah was seen “early on not as an opponent of the president but as someone
sufficiently connected with the president to intervene with him,”58 while Zindani’s Muslim
Brotherhood had been as active as Abdullah’s Hashid Tribal Confederation in the Islamic Front.
ISLAH’S EARLY CLASHES WITH THE YSP:
With unification Islah pursued anything but inclusivity. As Jillian Schwedler relates, Islah
“brought together a range of political actors under the banner of an Islamist political party in
large part to aid the leaders of the former North in defeating the South’s YSP in national
elections and thus diminishing southern power in postuinification Yemen.”59 At their
foundation they were not concerned with democracy at all but with anti‐secularism and
Islamist rhetoric.60
Islah’s attempts to subvert the YSP politically began in 1991. There was a referendum on
the constitution asking whether the sharia should be the sole or principal source of law. Islah
had favored the former formulation and, sensing defeat, had ultimately called for a boycott of
the referendum. In this particular instance, the YSP and important elements of the GPC closed
ranks against Islah's claims and the language adopted was “principal.”61 What is interesting,
however, is that Islah’s argument that the referendum was undemocratic as there was no
10
discussion on it substance – but was merely a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ proposition – was its “first serious
engagement of a democracy narrative, and the only one for several years.”62
The next scuffle took place in 1992 over Zindani’s “scientific institutes.” As mentioned
earlier, Zindani was instrumental in founding these Quranic schools in North Yemen about the
same time he organized the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood. The institutes were claimed to be
fronts of Islamist militancy by the YSP. As calls for jihad versus the “godless” communists of the
YSP grew louder from 1990 onwards, the confrontation was finally taken public during
parliamentary debate in 1992.63
The institutes have their origins in the Islamic Front, and were founded soon after their
defeat of the NDF in the early 1980s. Many key commanders of the Islamic Front were
subsequently recruited into the Afghan jihad and, upon their return to Yemen, set up schools
similar to those founded in Afghanistan to indoctrinate youth against the Soviets.64 The
proliferation of these institutes, by 1987, there were more than 1,100 ‘institutes’ throughout
the country claiming as many as 118,000 students,65 was owed to the fact that Zaydi
republicans like President Salih and Sheikh Abdullah had “relied on Sunni Muslims, particularly
the Brotherhood, to counter threats from the formerly Marxist south.”66 In a very real sense,
these Saudi financed and Wahhabi‐centered schools were turning out a Yemeni Taliban.
These institutes also spread into parts of the YAR, such as the Sa’ada region, that had only
recently been penetrated by the republican regime. Sa’ada was part of the northern Zaydi
tribal area considered the ‘heartland’ of the old Zaydi regime, and had remained loyal to the
imamate until the bitter end (1970). Salih used these ’Wahhabi’ institutes there “in the 1980s
11
against the [Zaydi] sayyids, some of whom retained pro‐imamate sympathies” and to counter
Zaydi parochial schooling.67
These institutes were suspected to be an important contributor to the assassination
campaign against the YSP (a campaign that targeted more than 100 of their leaders between
1990 and 199468). To make matters worse, the ROY was funding these institutes. In essence,
the YSP was a coalition partner in a government that was carrying out an assassination
campaign against them. It was only natural that the YSP would pursue government defunding
of these institutes, and incredible that the leaders of Islah would become enraged over the
possibility and step up attacks on YSP parliamentarians. Sheikh Abdullah himself raised the
specter of jihad and, when the legislation to defund the institutes passed, the Speaker of
Parliament, who was a member of the YSP, had his home attacked with rocket‐propelled
grenades.69 The institutes lost government funding but remained open.70
Amidst these disagreements, the first ever multi‐party parliamentary contest approached.
Since unification, the unified ROY parliament had simply been the amalgamation of former YAR
and PDRY parliaments. April 27, 199371 and the preceding free and open debate on issues and
ideology, however, would mark the birth of “organized mass politics in a region where political
power has long remained a closely‐held family affair.”72 It would also mark the end of the
unification process in Yemen.
It was in this spirit in the run‐up to elections that Islah held their “Unity and Peace” party
conference, adopting the slogan “the Qur’an and the Sunna supersede the constitution and
[secular] law.”73 The irony of a conference on unity and peace adopting such a slogan was not
12
lost on the YSP, who must have felt quite skeptical of its intentions amidst an assassination
campaign that was killing many prominent YSP members.
THE 1993 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS:
“The Yemenis faced a gargantuan task in constructing an electoral system from scratch” in
order to hold elections. The process was carried out by a newly created Supreme Elections
Committee (SEC), which drew up 301 equally populated voting districts and established all the
procedures associated with the electoral process, such as voter and candidate registration,
campaigning, voting, observation and counting. Sheila Carapico notes that “international
election monitors, journalists, and observers were uniformly impressed,” while noting the
“process was not without incident.” Choosing to remain optimistic, she deemed incidents such
as ballot‐stuffing, bribery and gunfire resulting in death as “testimony to a competitive and
pluralist environment.”74
The positive impact of the 1993 parliamentary elections cannot be overstated; and the
hopefulness of Carapico’s article analyzing the event soon thereafter should not be
diminished.75 However, with the benefit of hindsight – and with some humor – Paul Dresch
unveiled the true nature of the 1993 electoral process:
13
started [emphasis added].76
The GPC and Islah were in cahoots, and their target was the YSP. Not only does the above
quote encapsulate the practice of “co‐ordination,” a practice whereby political parties make
decisions on elected seats ahead of an election, but it evidences the corruption of the body
charged to oversee the elections – the SEC.
After the April elections were over and the dust had settled, it turned out that while the
GPC had gained the most seats far and away, Islah77 had nudged the YSP for second place.78
There had also been GPC/Islah coordination on more than one‐third of the 301 parliamentary
seats. As Dresch and Haykel would write, “during the 1993 elections, it was said, no less than
seventy Islah candidates withdrew in favor of GPC candidates, while thirty people elected in the
name of the GPC were in fact Islah supporters.”79 There there occurred a scuffle over
appointments to the 5‐man presidential council and the apportionment of secretariats – of
which Islah took some – including the Secretariat of Awqaf (endowments).
The biggest point of contention, however, was over the makeup of the presidential council
where the president and vice president were chosen and executive power wielded. Because
Islah had outpolled the YSP, they demanded a seat on the five man council. Prior to the
election, it was composed of two YSP members and three GPC members. Interestingly, Islah
was granted a seat at the expense of the GPC, and not the YSP, reconfiguring the makeup to be
2‐2‐1. In October 1993 Sheikh Abdullah, who had been elected Speaker of Parliament, put
forward a slate for the presidential council with Zindani as the Islah candidate. In parliamentary
voting, Zindani placed third – after the GPC candidates but in front of both YSP candidates, one
14
of whom did not receive sufficient votes. Obviously, this did not sit well with the al‐Bidh and
the YSP as Zindani was the most notorious radical within Islah and his nomination could have
easily been perceived as a slap in the face to the former rulers of the South.
Throughout late 1993 and into early 1994, many conferences were organized in an effort to
resolve the impasse over power sharing. Efforts by neutral groups such as the Yemeni National
Dialogue of Political Forces as well as other conciliatory groups, however, were ultimately
thwarted with the assassination of al‐Bidh’s sons when a compromise seemed in the offing. In
early 1994, al‐Bidh took himself to Aden and made the fateful decision to reconstitute the
former PDRY.80
THE 1994 CIVIL WAR:
It has been said that the civil war can be explained as a ‘rejection of pluralism and dialogue’
by both military leaderships’ who ultimately wanted to maximize their domain, which meant
either half the power in unified Yemen or a seceded autonomous southern state to al‐Bidh, and
total control of a unified Yemen to Salih.81 Islah was firmly favored the ‘total control’ option
and, as in the days of old when the Islamic Front had aided Salih against the NDF in the infancy
of his YAR regime, so Islah aided Salih in the infancy of his newest regime.
Intermittent skirmishing had been occurring since early 1994, but the true war got
underway on April 27, 1994 in the city of Amran. In a call to arms, several Islamists claimed that
to fight the YSP was jihad. Abd al‐Wahhab al‐Daylami, a member of Islah soon to become the
ROY’s Minister of Justice, issued a fatwa declaring socialists kafir and their killing sanctioned.82
15
Both Sheikh Abdullah and Zindani were scathing in their denunciation of the YSP, and Zindani
was successful in recruiting many Afghan veterans into the fight.83
The majority of Islahi Islamist support, however, was moral. Though Islamist auxiliaries
may have provided critical support in some instances, and been storied to have advanced “like
ants as if blind in the face of heavy fire,” the truth is that their total force never numbered more
than 5,000.84 The bulk of the fighting, and casualties, were born by northern draftees.
Within three months, the Yemeni Army had taken Aden and the war for secession was lost.
As Sana’a radio – ever colorful – would proclaim on V‐Day, “[Bidh] and his deviant gang had
wagered on their military machine. They have found themselves a scum drowning in the mud
of treason at which all Yemenis spit.”85 It was thus that Islah had acted as a proxy of Salih’s in
the destruction of the YSP as a political opponent. With al‐Bidh’s failure, he and many other
top leaders of the party sought asylum outside Yemen while inside many top leaders had been
assassinated over the previous three years. As a result, Islah moved in to take many of the
vacated YSP Secretariats and the YSP – as an opposition party – would be administered a blow
from which it is only beginning to recover.
The Civil War of 1994 may be seen as a pretext for quickly adopted constitutional
amendments that rescinded many of the progressive reforms allowed since the 1990
unification.86 Sarah Phillips explains the sweeping nature of these changes:
In September 1994, barely two months after the fighting ceased, constitutional
amendments were passed by a special committee, without a popular
referendum. The YSP’s defeat in the war cost the party its parliamentary veto,
allowing amendments to be drawn up by the ruling GPC–Islah coalition. Close to
16
half of the original articles in the constitution were amended, and 29 new
articles were added. The amendments abolished the Presidential Council and
broadened the powers of the president. The Presidential Council, which in the
1991 constitution was a five‐member body elected by the parliament, was
replaced by the Consultative Council (Majlis al Shura), whose 59 (now 111)
members are appointed by the president. Unlike the Presidential Council before
it, the Majlis al Shura was initially an advisory body that could not issue binding
resolutions, although it has since been granted some minor legislative functions.
The legal code of the former South, much of which was quite progressive,
particularly regarding women, was also formally nullified. Further consolidating
power in the executive, the amended constitution allowed the president to
appoint the prime minister, head the Supreme Judicial Council—overriding the
constitutional separation of powers—and decree laws when parliament was not
in session.87
As Schwedler noted, there was a substantial cooling down of the ‘political opening.’88 At the
same time, there were also post‐war mid‐level defections from Islah to the GPC,89 quite
possibly with the assumption that the days of party politics was over.
The War also allowed for a “reconstituted Political Security Organization” that resumed
extra‐judicial detentions during the state of emergency and which continued to assert itself well
after Salih and the GPC had consolidated rule – engaging in the usual Arab “round‐up of regime
critics” during the 1997 elections.90 Responsibility of the press, not freedom, became the new
byword, allowing Salih’s consolidated regime to forestall the “restoration of the privileges and
tolerance established during the four‐year liberal interlude.” Civil Society “now represented a
fragile but still meaningful defense against extra‐legal harassment by security personnel and
public prosecutors.”91
17
ISLAH ENTERS THE WILDERNESS:
Salih awarded many political offices formerly held by the YSP to Islah after the war as
‘booty.’92 For their part, Islah used moderates to fill ministerial posts – a meaningful decision as
it suggested the Islah “leadership’s realization that to maximize the party’s influence, it needed
to present ministers that would receive both wide government support as well as popular
acceptance.”93 The truth of the matter, however, was that following the YSP’s defeat, the Salih
regime no longer had any need for Islah.
Illustrative of Islah’s marginalization following the civil war was the award to the party of
only primarily service ministries as ‘reward’ for support of a unified Yemen. This was just the
type of political opening that represented a closing of political space as the Salih regime
channeled Islah’s political participation in fields, service ministries, whose reform would be
painful and difficult, and thus unpopular with the citizenry.94 The level of frustration over the
inability to accomplish anything led to an exodus from government of Islah ministers who felt
their attempts at reform had been identified as ‘Islamist’ by the GPC in order to build resistance
to their efforts.95 The flight was complete by the end of 1996.
With the 1997 parliamentary elections only a year out, the GPC announced its intention to
attain the majority of seats in Parliament.96 This angered Islah greatly, whose rank‐and‐file
members were feeling increasingly marginalized. The party responded by entering into
discussions with Yemen’s first political opposition coalition, of which the YSP was the senior
party, the Supreme Coordination Council for Opposition (SCCO).97 The Muslim Brotherhood,
which was the moderate Islamist voice within the party and ran its information arm, even toyed
18
with the idea of boycotting elections. While the political power of important figures within
Islah may have been on the increase, such as Sheikh Abdullah, their rise was owing more to
their personal closeness with Salih and his regime than party affiliation.98
While nothing ultimately came of the Islah/SCCO talks themselves, Islah had set a
precedent by publicly breaking step with the GPC for the first time. Their approach to the
opposition also caused Salih’s regime to allegedly come to a ‘coordination’ deal with Islah – by
which each party would agree not to run candidates against each other in certain districts.99 If
this ‘agreement’ was ever anything more than a ruse, it was a pretext for the YSP to boycott.100
1997 was a confusing moment for Islah. Not only had the party struggled with the idea of
boycotting the election, but when coordination with the GPC failed, they had signed a joint
statement of cooperation with the SCCO. While joining the SCCO, however, Islah still made
efforts to retain close ties to the GPC in order not to be thrown into the political wilderness.101
Much of this confusion was a result of growing factionalism within the party exemplified by the
Muslim Brotherhood‐led policy branch of the party engaging with the opposition from the mid‐
1990s onward. Simultaneously Islah’s leading personalities retained their close relationship
with Salih. The growing incoherency of the party was evident to all.102
As mentioned earlier, Islah was formed in 1990 as a combination of tribesmen, Islamists,
including Salafis and Muslim Brothers, and businessmen. While the core of its ideology was
drawn up by the Muslim Brotherhood, and was therefore moderate, the tribal component,
personified by Sheikh Abdullah, lent it political coverage in the beginning as a result of its ties to
the Salih regime. This inner diversity was not a problem in the early days of Islah/GPC alliance
19
against the YSP.103 However, the ‘alliance of conservatism’ that brought tribal leaders together
with Islamists under the tent of the Islah party was starting to come apart.
As Johnsen warned in The Election Yemen Was Supposed to Have, “as always in Yemen, it is
important to remember that, while political parties are not purely ornamental, behind‐the‐
scenes alliances of tribe and kinship mean much more than party loyalty.” 104 It appears as if
Sheikh Abdullah and the tribal Islahis, who had built, and benefited from, a web of political and
economic patronage extending from the Salih regime, were content with the status quo.105
The Muslim Brotherhood Islahis, however, were not happy with the status quo. While the
tribal faction within Islah were busy tying themselves as closely as possible to Salih, the
Brotherhood was engaged with formulating party policy. As Schwedler submits in Yemen’s
Aborted Opening, the Islamists in Islah did have an agenda, albeit democratic reform through
literacy in service of universal Islamic education.106 But more often than not, Islah’s “central
bureaucracy [would announce] formal policies and positions that [were] directly contradicted
by the statements of prominent leaders in the party.”107 Writing shortly after Yemen’s
unification in 1990, Former US Ambassador to Yemen Charles Dunbar wrote: “the strong
position Salih has built for himself vis‐à‐vis the tribes, the inability of the southern leaders to act
independently, and the contradictions that beset the conservative opposition [emphasis added]
are undoubted assets for the [Salih] leadership.”108 This assertion would ring true until the mid‐
2000s.
Islah’s political marginalization and, ultimately, shift toward a more oppositional role with
regard to the GPC can thus be directly tied to the GPC success – with substantial Islah aid – in its
20
struggle for domination over the YSP.109 With Islah’s progressive marginalization over the
course of the late 1990s into the early 2000s, the fractured nature of the party was laid bare:
With party leaders contradicting official positions and Muslim Brotherhood members
dominating party bureaus but not positions that tied Islah to the Salih/GPC regime, there was
bound to be inter‐party for discord.110 Ultimately, this discord would plague Islah to varying
degrees and in one fashion or another from 1997 until about 2005.
THE 1997 ELECTIONS: ISLAH CHANGES COURSE
With the YSP boycotting, a right‐wing coalition went into the 1997 elections virtually
unopposed. However, though the GPC didn’t run GPC candidates in certain districts, they did
run candidates – only as independents – and Islah was trounced.111 The only city where Islah
might have won a majority, Ta'izz, was likely averted through this process by the GPC. The
upshot was that the GPC candidates won 63% of the parliamentary seats, and unofficially
controlled about 75%. With hindsight, Sheila Carapico would comment in 2003 that it was
these elections that firmly moved Islah into opposition: The GPC now “easily rubber‐stamped
any government proposal including an extension of its own parliamentary term of office.”112
With the GPC’s dramatic victory in 1997, there was no need for the GPC to form a coalition
government. They offered Islah no cabinet portfolios. And even though Abdullah was
reelected to his speakership of the lower house, this had more to do with his tribal and
presidential connections than his ‘leadership’ of Islah. Besides, Abdullah and Zindani, as leaders
of Islah, notoriously aligned with the party and its platform when it suited them while taking
contradictory party positions almost casually. 113
21
With Islah’s electoral defeat, they became openly critical of the GPC, causing their
businessmen constituency to melt away with their support. As April Longley notes, Islah slowly
lost powerful merchant support to the GPC as they, and the tribal tendency in Islah, were
“loathe to move squarely into the oppositional camp.” Longley claims the reason behind
businessmen abandoning the party was financially motivated and that, regardless of similarities
in ideology between them and the Muslim Brotherhood, they joined the GPC to “protect their
investments.” They went on to make an assertion that has become quite prevalent in Yemen
today: Chambers of Commerce and prominent businessmen were firmly in Salih’s corner
because they believed a Yemen without Salih would lead to violence, instability, and the loss of
investments.114
Islah increasingly began to moderate its political agenda. As Longley further relates, “Islah
was originally founded as a religious party. The party fought the socialists and struggled to
make Shari‘a the basis of law. Now party leaders speak on issues foreign to their original
charter, such as democracy, human rights, and women’s rights.”115 But more than that, the
Islamists were working with former ideological enemies such as leftists – which Schwedler took
to be more than just a strategic accommodation.116
The narrowing of political opportunity for the majority of Islahis was causing a widening
engagement with the opposition, confirming “the notion that institutional constraints structure
behavior [as] one of the key propositions of [a political science theory known as] the inclusion‐
moderation hypothesis. According to this logic, groups will begin to cooperate with even
former enemies when the incentives are strong enough.”117 At the same time, Islah was
22
proving a related theory “that beliefs and agendas can evolve over time as political actors
engage in forms of pluralist participation.”118
This ideological moderation, admittedly not uniform throughout Islah, gained momentum
during the late 1990s with meetings between Islah and YSP leaders at National‐Islamic
Conferences as well as workshops and joint consultations organized by the National Democratic
Institute (NDI) to promote democratic values and institutions. It has been claimed that the NDI
coordinated the direct talks between Islah and the YSP that led to their alliance.119 The point
however is not how they were brought together, but that they were brought together. It is also
interesting that Islah’s moderation was taking place outside the power structure, leading Jillian
Schwedler to adjust the inclusion‐moderation definition to assert that “Ideological change may
result not from participation, in pluralist processes per se, but from engagement with multiple
narratives:”120
As the 1999 presidential elections approached, the relationship between the
Islah party and the GPC had severely deteriorated. Contacts between certain
Islah leaders such as Muhammad Qahtan, the head of the political section, and
secretary‐general Muhammad Yadumi—and YSP leaders, notably Jarallah Umar,
the party’s deputy secretary‐general, were still sporadic but more frequent.121
Islah leaders supported the president in 1999, but by 2001 were in serious dialogue with
the YSP. In July 2001, Sheikh Abdullah signaled that the tribal members of the party were
unhappy as well, saying Islah was speaking with the opposition in order to push the government
back towards the ‘democratic path.’ By early 2003, Islah had, to great extent, moved into the
opposition camp and participated in the founding of the JMP whose “life and times” are the
subject of the next chapter.
23
CHAPTER TWO
THE MARCH TOWARDS OPPOSITION
THE JMP IS BORN:
Much like Islah was formed back in 1990 to counter, and ultimately neuter, YSP dominance
in the former PDRY, so was the JMP formed to undermine the dominance of the GPC. The child
of Jarallah Omar of the YSP,122 a southerner who led the commando forces of the NDF in the
north during the late 1970s, Islah was brought into the JMP fold by prominent Muslim
Brotherhood Islahis123 Muhammad al‐Yadumi, Abdul Wahab al‐Anisi and Muhammad Qahtan.
The third force in forming the JMP is a political science teacher and member of the Zaydi al‐
Haqq party, Muhammad Abd al‐Malik al‐Mutawakkil. One of the JMP political platform
ideologues, al‐Mutawakkil characterizes the political problems in Yemen as not a “struggle
between Marxism and capitalism, or between Pan‐Arab nationalism and state nationalism, or
between Islam and unbelief, nor even a struggle between north and south or between Shafii
and Zaydi,” but between two sets of values: values of democracy and values of domination.124
The Yemeni origins of the JMP rest with the aforementioned people, but they were first put
together by outside forces. As Michaelle Browers explains, Mutawakkil and Jarallah met at the
24
1994 National‐Islamic Conference in Beirut, a conference that continues to be held and of
which Mutawakkil has been an organizer. It is at these conferences that Jarallah also came into
contact with both al‐Anisi and Qahtan. In addition, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) has
worked with both Islah and the YSP to promote democratic values and institutions while
holding workshops and joint consultations. It has been claimed that the NDI coordinated the
direct talks between Islah and the YSP that led to their alliance.125
But it wasn’t just the moderate Islahis who were seriously engaged in reassessing Islah’s
relationship with the Salih regime. In a BBC interview in July 2001, Abdullah portrayed his
party’s relationship with YSP as one of “coordination” to push the regime back in the
democratic direction, claiming, “for the sake of democracy, we should give our help to all the
forces that are loyal to democracy.”126 That Abdullah used the loaded term ‘coordination,’
should not be overlooked – nor should the fact that Abdullah had said that Islah had more in
common with the GPC than the opposition just three years earlier. Jillian Schwedler would
echo Abdullah sentiment about the same time, commenting that the first years after Yemeni
unification had looked promising, but that the government currently resembled the autocratic
pre‐unification North.127
As 2002 progressed and the parliamentary elections of April 2003 drew nearer, the
coalition worked on their political vision for Yemen:
The opposition hoped to win seats in the 301‐member parliament with a
platform calling for fair, free, rule‐bound contested elections; policies to alleviate
Yemen's acute problems with public security, increasing poverty, dire water
shortages and inadequate services; and a rule of law plank calling for the
25
eradication of corruption, the protection of human rights and rights of free
expression.128
On December 28, 2002, after addressing an audience of several thousand at a closed
convention at the Islah party headquarters in Sana’a, Jarallah was gunned down at close
range.129 The father of the JMP, at the pinnacle of accomplishment, died en route to the
hospital. Though the motives and affiliations attributed to Jarallah’s assassin are unclear, Sheila
Carapico and others have commented that “few Arab leaders would tolerate a former rebel
commander spearheading electoral opposition.”130 The JMP coalition was formed shortly after
Jarallah’s assassination, and Islah was immediately the dominant force. The YSP, the Populist
Nasirist Unity Organization, the Union of Popular Forces and Al‐Haqq, the Truth party, rounded
out the coalition.131
Much like the parliamentary elections of 1993 and 1997, Islah went on to gain about 20%
of the public vote in 2003. With the death of the JMP founder just four months earlier – and in
the middle of an Islah convention – it was surprising that the coalition didn’t fracture.
Interestingly, for the first time in parliamentary elections there was no ‘coordination;’ the
traditional 15% of the vote that usually went to ‘independents’ were now firmly with the GPC.
ISLAH CHOOSES OPPOSITION:
If the Parliamentary elections of 2003 occurred too soon after the formation of the JMP for
the coalition to properly engage the public,132 the presidential election of 2006, running
concurrently with local elections, would be their first test.
26
Throughout 2004 and most of 2005, Islah remained ambivalent with its loyalties regarding
the opposition, of which it was a part, and the regime. As Phillips writes, many Islah members
still didn’t want to be “unambiguously” part of the opposition,133 and Islah leaders were clear
that they didn’t have capacity to form an alternate government, being reluctant to oppose
Salih’s government in such a way that might topple it.134 This stance led many to distrust them.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE SALIH/ABDULLAH ‘RELATIONSHIP’:
For the most part, this ambivalence came to a head because of a sharp difference of
opinion between Sheikh Abdullah and President Salih stemming from a proposed substantial
reduction of the national fuel subsidy in July 2005. The subsidy reduction led to riots in all the
major cities. For what may have been the first time, there was massive open criticism of Salih
in the streets with cries of “laa Sanhan b’ad al‐yawm,”135 together with charges that Salih was
an “enemy of God.” Mohammed al‐Yadumi, the Secretary General of the Islah party and a
Muslim Brotherhood member, saw his opening. As Phillips reveals, Yadumi “told the president
that the possibility of another alliance between the two parties was now over. He reportedly
warned President Salih that while he might be able to remove some of Islah’s leaders, the party
would endure.”136
The 2005 disintegration of the relationship between Sheikh Abdullah and Salih was a
watershed for Islah, binding them closer to their former ideological rivals. Less than four
months later, in November 2005, The JMP released its platform for political, economic and
social reform. Claiming “there are no more fantasies in the minds of Yemenis about the
catastrophe that is waiting for them,” the JMP proclaimed the only option was total reform.137
27
The document called for reform of the constitution, parliament, and judiciary, as well as “for
the peaceful rotation of power, respect for the law and the constitution, the prevention of
corruption, greater limitations on the role of the military and security apparatus, civil service
reforms [and] greater popular empowerment.”138 And while the document was an impressive
account of what needed to be done to right the ship of state, Sarah Phillips identifies the
explicit split Islah was making with the GPC in the opening pages as the true slap in the face to
Salih:
Leaving aside the question of whether the JMP knows how to achieve these
reforms, the document’s power, and probably the reason behind the regime’s
accusations of treason and conspiracy, lies in its articulation of a split between
the opposition, particularly Islah, and the ruling party. This is a significant step,
considering Islah’s historical place within the regime’s patronage network, and
one that could mark the willingness of the popular Islamist party to oppose the
government more coherently.139
By December of 2005, paradigmatic changes were occurring in Islah. Sheikh Abdullah sent
a strong message to Salih through his son Hussein – who was a GPC MP – warning the President
that he would consider breaking with the GPC to form a new party if the regime did not alter its
policies. Also, the Muslim Brotherhood “moved to distance themselves from the [Islahi] Salafis”
by announcing women would be trained as candidates for the 2006 local elections.140 In a clear
decision that signaled the renewed commitment of Islah to oppose the regime, by the end of
the month a JMP executive committee had been formed with Muhammad Qahtan of Islah as its
spokesperson.141
By early 2006, Islah’s Muslim Brothers had gained ascendance in deciding the party’s
political direction. With the exodus of conservative businessmen a decade earlier and the
28
recent success in marginalizing the Salafis, personified by Zindani,142 there remained only two
major contending groups within the party: the tribalists and the Muslim Brothers. At the same
time the tribal group, which, according to Phillips, had enjoyed ‘disproportionate power’ during
the 1990s resulting from its relationship with the regime and president, saw their power
diminishing in relation to the Muslim Brotherhood Islahis as a result of the Salih/Abdullah
split.143
With the increasing exclusion of Sheikh Abdullah from the informal (patronage) system,
Phillips believes Islah had to reach out to the other opposition parties for protection. As a
result of years of dialogue with the opposition, this yielded an advantage to the moderate
Muslim Brothers while further eroding Islah’s exclusionary political ideology.144 As mentioned
previously, there had been a substantial rollback in progressive political reforms adopted at
unification following the 1994 civil war. Islah’s open rapprochement with the YSP sent an
important message to supporters and would be supporters of their party: the now dominant
tendency within the party was no longer satisfied with the Yemen’s political status quo. Their
membership with the JMP meant they desired to “preserve and expand what few democratic
openings remain.”145
THE 2006 ELECTIONS:
The GPC had reacted severely to the JMP platform, claiming it to be boilerplate that merely
sought to divide Yemenis in the lead up to elections. In fact, it seems the Salih regime was
actually worried that the JMP might be successful. GPC officials met individually with leaders of
the opposition parties, and efforts were made to drive a wedge between the coalition by
29
making promises to both Islah and the YSP.146 Islah was offered cabinet positions while the YSP
was offered a return of property and offices confiscated after the civil war if they would
abandon the JMP and come into alignment with the GPC. Phillips asserts that Islah wrestled
with their choice until only five months before elections, but then “threw itself in very publicly
with the opposition.”147 The regime’s efforts had failed.
But Salih ultimately had no reason to worry. Apparently aided by substantial fraud the GPC
achieved a resounding victory in local elections.148 In presidential balloting, Salih was
overwhelmingly returned to office with more than 77 percent of the vote. There also existed
factionalism in the JMP that worked against them, which led the JMP to put most of their
energies into the presidential election instead of focusing on the local elections, where they
may have made inroads. To make matters worse, two weeks before the election Sheikh
Abdullah’s son Hamid berated Salih in a speech during a JMP rally attended by 300,000 for the
JMP’s presidential candidate, Faisal Othman Bin Shamlan. It was so provocative a rally that the
specter of violence in the event of a Shamlan victory was raised and Sheikh Abdullah, who was
almost certainly involved in this turning up of the heat on the regime, had to diffuse the crisis
by endorsing Salih.149
The JMP loss was staggering. Where they had poured the majority of their resources,
Shamlan had come away with only 23 percent of the vote. In the local elections they fared
even worse. Many Yemeni scholars saw little positive in the 2006 elections outcome for the
JMP. Longley claimed it confirmed the opposition’s internal weakness and ‘political
immaturity,’150 while Burrowes believed the JMP had become distracted from local elections by
30
the presidential race.151 Gregory Johnsen felt that “even the JMP’s threats and temporary
refusal to accept the results helped to strengthen the government’s case by demonstrating the
opposition’s independence.”152
FOOL ME ONCE:
As in previous elections, there had been international observers of the 2006 electoral
process. Both the NDI and the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) would
observe as well as file reports on the process in 2006. While deeming the electoral contest
“open and genuine” in their September 2006 preliminary report, the EU EOM acknowledged
there were significant shortcomings in the process, including “voter intimidation, underage
voting and breaches of ballot secrecy.”153 The EU EOM also noted the politically motivated
arrests of JMP supporters and candidates, the overwhelming support for incumbents by the
police and military, and the ‘frequent’ use of state resources in the service of the ruling party.154
These irregularities on the part of the regime were not new, what was new had been the
unified opposition of the JMP to the registration process preceding the elections.
Prior to the election, the JMP had charged the regime‐appointed Supreme Commission for
Elections and Referendum (SCER)155 – which was responsible for the running and organization
of elections – of administering an unjust voter registration process. Such “serious registration
violations” included the registration of underage voters, the intimidation of registrants by
security personnel, the “failure to check faces against IDs,” and the military being trucked into
registration centers.156 As a result of this perceived bias in the registration process, relations
31
between the JMP and GPC had collapsed and the JMP instituted a boycott on association with
the SCER.
In order to restart the registration process and hold elections on time, the NDI brokered
the June 18th Agreement between the GPC and JMP (see annex). Among other things, the
accord added two JMP members to the SCER bringing the total from seven to nine members;
apportioned the supervision of election commissions along a 54/46 percent GPC/JMP split;
guaranteed the neutrality of the state media, military and security forces; prohibited the use of
state facilities and mosques for the purpose of campaigning; and promised a thorough
examination of the voter list by both GPC and JMP legal teams.157
In hindsight it is clear that the regime viewed the June 18th Agreement as a pretext to draw
the opposition back into the process. Both the NDI’s “Report on the 2006 Presidential and
Local Elections in the Republic of Yemen” and the EU EOM’s “Yemen 2006: Final Report” make
it plain that the regime subverted the Agreement. There was “serious abuse and misuse of
public resources,”158 security force intimidation of opposition rallies, and payment of bonuses
to government employees just days before the election. In addition, promises made to the
opposition in the Agreement that both sides would work together to address serious flaws in
the voter list were ignored. This list was acknowledged by the SCER to have at least 150,000
“duplications and names of ineligible and underage voters,” but was arbitrarily amended
without input by the JMP and in a non‐transparent manner. The promise of an electronic copy
of the voter database being made available to the JMP was also ignored.
32
Though the election may have been generally characterized as ‘open and genuine,’ there
was a lot of work yet to do to make the process more trustworthy and transparent to the
opposition and citizenry at large. As a result, the EU EOM made 35 recommendations following
the elections to improve the process.159 Both the JMP and GPC agreed to take up these
electoral reforms in advance of Parliamentary elections scheduled for April 2009.
FOOL ME TWICE:
Throughout 2007 and into 2008, the GPC and JMP were in parliamentary discussions to
come to an understanding that would amend the election laws as well as change how the SCER
was constituted and better define its responsibilities. Major proposed changes to the election
laws included the stipulations that “no individual should be forced to cast his vote for a certain
nominee, [and that] any civil or military official who is found to use his authority to force a
voter or his employees to work in favor or against any political nominee, party or organization,
will be tried according to the stated punishments as well as dismissal from their post‐
position.”160 Other principal amendments pursued by the JMP sought to confine “the
registration of voters to their place of birth or residence and guarantee…. the impartiality of
public financing and state‐run media during election campaigns.”161
While electoral reform discussions were underway, the term for the then SCER members
expired. Though EU EOM recommendations called for the appointment of judges as opposed
to presidential selection to the commission, the JMP had counter‐proposed its formation from
parties represented in parliament. This was not an idle proposal, as judgeships were
presidential appointments.162
33
By June of 2008, the GPC and JMP had still found no agreement on how to address these
issues. As a result, the GPC sought to bring the amendments to the floor of parliament, where
the process would have been compromised by the sheer number of GPC parliamentarians. In
response, the YSP led a JMP boycott of parliament on June sixth. They did not return to
parliament until a month later and only after the GPC agreed to suspend parliamentary debate
on the amendments until agreed to by all parties.163
By August, and with elections only eight months away, the struggle between the regime
and the JMP reached a fever pitch. Amidst GPC claims that they had an agreement with the
JMP on election law amendments and JMP counterclaims that they had not,164 The YSP first
staged a parliamentary sit‐in before again leading the way in another JMP parliamentary
boycott on August sixth. This time the boycott was not only over the stalled parliamentary
process, but included JMP calls for the release of political prisoners and a resolution to the crisis
in the South.165 The following week, one of the GPC’s “most loyal parties,” the Arab Ba’ath
Socialist Party, defected from the GPC to the JMP.166
On August 18, 2008, Parliament finally took the matter to a vote. JMP parliamentarians
were present as President Salih had promised the release of political prisoners two days
earlier.167 Using the excuse that the JMP failed to put forth their SCER nominees that day,
something the JMP refused to do as they had consistently called for the election laws to be
amended first, GPC parliamentarians took the opportunity to defeat all amendments.168 They
then proceeded to confirm the old SCER commissioners in their positions, allowing for the
34
addition of three JMP members as a sop. The JMP was unified in its condemnation, and
stepped up their critical attacks on the regime.
As summer turned to fall, Salih and his regime were fruitless in their efforts to drive a
wedge between the JMP member parties and find acceptance in some corner of the opposition
for their actions of August 18th. In what was seen as an effort by the regime to split Islah,
Zindani reentered the spotlight as the head of a new – and highly controversial – “Committee
for Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice.”169 And President Salih, using terminology reminiscent
of the 1994 civil war, excoriated the JMP as “traitors” who were involved in “inciting a crisis,
organizing demonstrations and sit‐ins, and calling for secession [emphasis added].”170 At the
end of September the JMP made history in refusing a presidential decree – the decree had
reappointed former JMP commissioners to the newly formed SCER, and the JMP’s refusal was
the first time this had ever occurred in Yemen.
By October, the JMP had decided to boycott the SCER voter registration process, set to
begin the following month, and was considering how they would view the parliamentary
elections. In a Yemen Post interview with Islah’s General Secretary Abdul Wahab al‐Anesi, al‐
Anesi was quoted as saying the JMP would not boycott elections, but would also not participate
according to criteria desired by ruling GPC.171 Within a week after the interview, al‐Anesi –
citing the importance of elections in bringing political reform – said JMP would try to hold
independent elections, leading Saleh to appoint former Foreign and Prime Minister Dr. Abdul‐
Karim al‐Eryani as the regime’s negotiator with the JMP.172
35
When the SCER‐administered voter registration process began in November, there was
resistance to the process across the country, and not only by the JMP. As a result, security
forces arrested JMP supporters for peaceful protest and the handing out of literature. Some
voter registration centers closed due to a lack of turnout while others were attacked, one with
grenades.173 In tribal districts, election committees were forced out not because of the JMP,
but because of government failure regarding development.
But the situation [was] worsening and confrontations between the government’s
forces and demonstrators, believed to be pushed by JMP, claimed lives in some
provinces, in addition to so many injuries. Sheikh Hamid al‐Ahmar [whose father
Sheikh Abdullah had died in late December 2007] addressed tens of thousands of
people… saying that the JMP and Yemeni people [were] struggling for change. He
accused the regime of revolting against democracy [by] using its majority in the
Parliament last August, when it refused some amendments to the election law
and formed the [SCER] without the approval of JMP’s blocs in the Parliament.174
Hamid al‐Ahmar went on to say that the protests against the SCER committees were “just the
beginning,” and that the JMP would “use all possible means to stop the ‘illegal’ elections.”175
As the protests increased, Parliament extended local council terms, cancelling local
elections that had been scheduled for same day as parliamentary elections.176 If the regime
thought their decision would dampen demonstrations, they were mistaken.
On November 27th – what is now characterized by the opposition as ‘bloody Thursday,’
‘awakening Thursday,’ or the ‘November Intifada,’177 government security forces and police in
Sana’a opened fire on thousands of protesters calling for a boycott of the April 2009 elections.
Reporters on the scene were beaten by “troops using batons and weapon butts.”178 One
witness claimed that “government troops opened fire and threw bricks and tear gas at the
36
protest[ors], prompting a stampede, which caused some of the injuries.”179 When it was all
over, dozens were hurt, at least three critically.
In mid‐January, a European delegation arrived in Yemen to mediate between GPC and JMP.
Their chief goal was ostensibly to reconstruct the SCER and engage the opposition in its
operation, and they would seek to delay the elections for some months in order to do so.180
But the JMP had already been fooled by just such a tactic back in June 2006, and they weren’t
about to let it happen again. By the end of the month, sources leaked to the Yemen Post – in
an article provocatively entitled “EU Mission: We will not Observe Elections if Opposition not
Involved” – that the mission was working towards delaying the elections for one year so that
the demands of opposition parties could be met during this period. The mission was also clear
with the regime that they would “not send observers for one‐sided elections.”181
By early February, the regime launched itself on a last‐ditch offensive to force its will upon
the opposition and hold elections on time and according to their political scheme. In one
interview, the Head of the Political Office at GPC, Abdullah Ahmed Ghanim, accused Islah and
the YSP of embracing terrorist groups to promote their extremist ideas.182 One of these groups,
which we shall address in Chapter Three, were the Houthis in Sa’ada province, whose most
recent rebellion against the government dated back to the summer of 2004. Days later,
Ghanim wondered aloud in another interview, “Why do those parties highlight [the] name of
Al‐Qaeda in Yemen and their unity with other Al‐Qaeda comrades in Saudi Arabia?” He also
contended that the JMP sought to create a new alliance that might involve “in addition to JMP
member parties, Houthi rebels in Sana’a, those who instigate secession in southern
37
governorates, and representatives of extremist and terrorist currents that have ties with the
Islah Party.”183 A sweeping, if not an incredibly far‐reaching, condemnation of the JMP.
In tandem with their slur campaign, the regime gave ground. Claiming that “everything is
all right [and that] the crisis [was] only in the eye of the beholder,”184 the GPC affirmed that the
elections would still go off in April, and that the parliament was readying to revote the
amendments defeated back in August:185 an affirmation the JMP ignored as political posturing.
The JMP smelled blood. Their unity in crisis (dating back to the previous June) – together
with the threat of a unified opposition boycott – erased more than a decade of defeat and
exploitation at the hands of the regime. With the implicit support of international observers
who refused to monitor ‘one‐sided’ elections, they didn’t have long to wait. On February 24th, a
deal brokered by the EU delegation, along with members from the NDI, postponed the
elections for two years. Soon after Parliament voted in the affirmative to allow the two‐year
postponement, Anisi announced his support for elections but said it had been impossible to
hold them while the crises in both north and south Yemen persisted, implicitly laying the delay
at the GPC’s doorstep.186 Sheikh Hamid Al‐Ahmar, “a leading member of Islah Party and a key
supporter of JMP,” was more equivocal. Saying the postponement was a positive step towards
improving national dialogue on important political issues, he called on all Yemenis to get
involved in solving their political problems, admitting “that the JMP call for dialogue is a
confession of the fact that [the] opposition parties alone are incapable [of handling] the current
crisis.”187 Salih had finally blinked first. It was the dawn for a new type of opposition politics in
Yemen.188.
38
The success of the JMP did not occur divorced of other calamities that either eroded the
regime’s ability to successfully administer the state, or made evident their inability, or lack of
desire, to successfully resolve political conflict. In many cases, JMP goals and these troubles
were mutually reinforcing. Before we move on to our conclusion, then, it is important to
address the many problems apart from the JMP that the Salih regime faces, understanding that
the regime has effectively received a two‐year reprieve as a result of the postponement of
parliamentary elections. Until now, Salih has always been very effective at finding a way to
balance factions against each other in order to prolong his rule. The question now is: Does two
years give him enough time to find his way back to the top?
39
CHAPTER THREE
YEMEN’S PERENNIAL CHAOS
Most national newspapers, when reflecting on the past year of events in their country and
constructing a “top 10,” usually are not as grim as the Yemen Post was on December 29, 2008.
The rise in terrorist attacks, war in Sa’ada, natural disasters in Hadramaut, protest in the south,
and stalled negotiations between the GPC and JMP made the ‘top 5;’ while the rise in
kidnapping, the drop in oil prices and threats to the diminishing Yemeni Jewish community
rounded out a somber picture.189 Bitterly, the paper would reiterate what has become a
mantra of the regime: “however, GPC leaderships stress that the crisis is only in the mind of
those who speak about its existence.”190 With the Yemen Times also reporting the regime as
saying “everything is all right [and that] the crisis is only in the eye of the beholder,”191 they
identified war in the north and troubles in the south as rounding out a triumvirate of political
obstacles, along with the JMP, that will dominate the “country’s political sphere” in 2009.192
ECOLOGICAL DISASTER AND THE SCARCITY OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
On October 24, 2008, catastrophic flash floods were unleashed throughout the Hadramaut
following three days of heavy rains. More than 180 people were killed and 20,000 left
40
homeless after “mud houses were washed away by 30 hours of heavy rain.”193 In the
Hadramaut Valley, close to 100,000 acres of farmland was swept away. According to the
Yemeni Agricultural Ministry, the destruction included “570,857 palm trees, 5,239 lemon trees,
35,819 other fruit trees, and 66,680 beehives.”194 The topsoil was also washed away, leading
agricultural officials to predict things would take between five and eight years to rectify
themselves.
This disaster is representative of a looming problem in a country where 40 percent of the
populace is already undernourished and which currently imports about 80 percent of its food
needs.195 While international agencies have stepped in to fill the food gap for the time being,
food security has yet to be addressed in earnest by the regime, which relies on its dwindling
income from oil to import the bulk of the country’s food. As national income from oil and
agriculture continue to plummet, and severe drought reduces arable land to only three percent
of the country, “Yemen’s stagnant economy [truly] offers a troubling prospect.”
To top it off, Yemen “faces widespread water scarcity and soil depletion due to extensive
cultivation of the narcotic qat.”196 The World Bank’s most recent MENA Development Report
observes that:
Yemen is one of the most water‐scarce countries in the world; per capita, it has
no more than 2 percent of the world’s average. Agriculture employs 3 million
people out of a workforce of 5.8 million, and uses [95.3] percent of water
supplies. Overabstraction of groundwater encouraged by fuel subsidies and
demand for the mildly narcotic crop qat had created an acute first‐level water
availability crisis. While estimates vary, it is believed that in many of the highland
basins, where a significant share of the population is concentrated, stocks of
water are at crisis levels, and some villages are already being abandoned.197
41
Plainly stated, food and water security represent a huge problem for Yemen. In the
summer of 2008 it was noted that agriculture accounted for the income of nearly 75 percent of
the population between 2000 and 2005 comprising 21 percent of GDP and close to 60 percent
of Yemen’s non‐oil exports. Agriculture, however, is losing ground. Much of this retreat is the
result of water scarcity, “the insufficient public investment in the sector, and the growing
cultivation of water intensive crops such as qat”198 – an evergreen shrub with no nutritional
benefit whose leaves are said to reduce appetite, sharpen the senses and alleviate fatigue when
chewed.
The clarion call to reassess water sustainability seems to be falling on deaf ears, however.
The World Bank has been reporting for years that “water sustainability started to worsen in the
1970s with the digging of deep tube wells for both drinking and agricultural use” which led to a
substantial depletion of groundwater.199 The group also reported more than two decades ago
that 80‐90 percent of all new wells being bored in the Highlands were used for the production
of qat.200 If some of the more liberal estimates are true, then almost 90 percent of all
groundwater and at least 36 percent of total water resources in Yemen are being expended
annually on qat crops.201 With agriculture accounting for the income of nearly 75 percent of
the population, it is in the qat market that the majority of Yemeni workers make their living.
Another natural resource at risk, and one tied into southern grievances, is oil. Since
unification, oil has ‘greased the wheels’ of the regime’s patronage arrangement. It has bound
“the tribes, opposition politicians, businessmen and religious extremists into a web of personal
loyalty,”202 while prolonging Salih’s reign through the warping of party politics. In recent years
42
there has been a substantial decline in Yemeni oil production – from a high of almost 450,000
barrels per day (bpd) in 2002, to an estimated average of about 320,000 in 2008. This
reduction is dangerous not only to the regime, which depends almost completely on oil
revenues to pay the military and government bureaucracy,203 but to the nation as a whole. As
the World Bank has documented, “nearly 75 percent of central government fiscal revenues and
90 percent of export receipts come from the oil sector.”204
With state revenue from oil to predicted to evaporate by the year 2017, and the ‘growing’
revenue from natural gas expected to only reach half the amount the government currently
takes in for oil 20 years from now,205 one would expect the regime to be exploring alternative
methods of economic sustenance. Even the Yemeni government estimated they had only 750
million barrels of proven reserves remaining in 2005, which has them running out of oil (with a
conservative production of 320,000 bpd) in 2011.206 Instead, Salih recently avoided the issue in
a December 2008 interview with Ahmad Al‐Jarallah of the Arab Times. Though he admitted
that the recent decline in oil prices was affecting his country’s economy, he followed up with
the disingenuous remark that “oil is not the only source of income for Yemen,” and that
“recently discovered gas, which we will soon export, will generate income for us.”207 The truth
of the matter is that Yemen was recently projected to generate only about $250 million in gas
revenue in 2009; whereas it’s diminishing oil revenues could contribute as much as $4 billion in
the same year.208 As Ginny Hill wrote last November, “the anticipated LNG revenue will provide
a welcome cushion but it will not [emphasis added] make up the shortfall from the impending
decline in oil exports.”209 Equally troubling, Salih seems to be relying on an alternative rent, as
opposed to a reformation of the economic sector, to sustain Yemen’s economy.
43
WAR IN SA’ADA
The pretext for current unrest in the province of Sa’ada began in June 2004, when the
“rebellion’s initial leader Hussein al‐Houthi, called President Saleh ‘a tyrant… who wants to
please America and Israel, by sacrificing the blood of his own people.’”210 As a result, “the
Yemeni government overreached and tried to arrest [al‐Houthi], a former member of
parliament, following years of confrontations and government support for transplanted
Wahhabi extremists against a local community of… Zaydis.”211 By September 2004 Hussein al‐
Houthi was dead after an intense military confrontation, and the government declared the
rebellion terminated.212 The torch of rebellion, though, was passed to other members of his
family.
While most scholars point toward more domestic origins of the current conflict, such as
economic marginalization, thwarted market access, and the lack of infrastructural development
in the region,213 this intermittent civil war finds its origins in the overthrow of the Zaydi
Imamate and the foundation of the YAR in 1962. As Ginny Hill has written, the al‐Houthis – a
prestigious Zaydi sayyid family – have accused the government of “meddling with the delicate
religious balance between Zaydi Shi’as and Salafi Sunnis [and] are alarmed by Saleh’s perceived
support for Salafi groups aligned with Saudi‐style Wahhabi Islam.”214 There seems to be
substance to this accusation, as the Yemeni army currently fighting the Houthis in Sa’ada is
“backed by Salafis and jihadists led by Sheikh [Zindani].”215
This Zaydi/Wahhabi tension and government meddling reaches back to the late 1970s,
when the republican regime was first able to assert control in the Sa’ada governorate by
44
favoring Muslim Brotherhood sponsored and Saudi financed “scientific institutes,”216 which
propagated the strict Wahabbi Sunnism of Saudi Arabia. “Wahhabism was introduced into the
province of Sa’dah by local men who had converted while studying religion in Saudi Arabia or
fighting with the mujahidin in Afghanistan,” and, as a result, the heartland of Zaydism also
became the home to some of the leading Wahhabi figures in Yemen.217 Throughout the 1980s,
Salih supported this growing Wahhabi movement against the Zaydi sayyids.
By the 1990s, Salih was seeking to countervail the strength of Wahhabism as taught in the
institutes, ostensibly as part of a balancing act against Saudi influence and General Ali Mushin, a
Salih relative and Wahhabi sympathizer who worked to incorporate salafist militants into the
Yemeni army following the civil war.218 To carry out the counteraction, Salih turned to Hussein
al‐Houthi:
After the 1994 civil war, Salih supported the establishment of a Zaydi militia
under the command of al‐Huthi, who also revived the Zaydi parochial school
system in the northwest of the country. These are the schools that the regime
is now closing for allegedly teaching intolerance. While this is, in some cases, a
reasonable claim, the Zaydi schools are being pursued far more seriously than
the equally intolerant scientific institutes.219
The Houthis’ are members of Hizb al‐Haqq, a small Zaydi religious political party formed in
1990 to “represent the sayyids, whose largest constituency is in the Sa’da governorate.”220
Some believe the party’s foundation was in response to the organization of salafi currents in
Islah, and the two parties were at odds with each other through much of the 1990s. It is
interesting, then, that the Islah‐led JMP, of which al‐Haqq is a member, is showing a growing
solidarity with the Houthis in Sa’ada.
45
The JMP support, which was recently praised by a Houthi political officer,221 also points
towards an ever widening rift between the salafi members of Islah and those who were
successful at bringing Islah into the opposition coalition. As Yemeni journalist Mohammed Bin
Sallam reported in early March,
According to citizens in Sa’ada governorate "thousands of Jihadist groups, or
Salafia – including Yemenis and foreigners from neighboring Arab and non‐Arab
countries – started gathering in areas around villages and towns where Houthi
supporters live. These groups are gathering against the Houthis in coordination
with the army under the management of military centers and sheikhs known for
their affiliation with the Islah Party and their objection to the Zaidi sect.222
Bin Sallam went on to report a JMP member who claimed the existence of a secret agreement
between Islah and the army to re‐launch war with the Houthis with the aim of ethnically
cleansing Sa’ada of the Zaydi sect and its supporters. Zindani’s salafiyya are the likely Islahi
signatories to the ‘secret agreement,’ if one exists, and it is possible that the issue of the
Houthis may still be unresolved at the party level for Islah. During a recent interview, however,
the Secretary General of Islah, Abdul Wahab Al‐Anesi, responded unequivocally to GPC
accusations that the JMP backed the Houthis, making a startling admission of Islah’s complicity
during the 1994 civil war when replying that “the authority wanted us to play [our] role and…
fight the Houthis, so it [could] later interfere and play the role of mediator. This was its policy
when dealing with the issue of Southern provinces as well. It is a disgraceful policy.”223
The war in Sa’ada is taking its toll on the Salih regime. Called “the biggest challenge in
North Yemen”224 since Salih came to power in 1978, it has put a tremendous strain on his ability
to remain above the fray as the battle places him squarely within tribal conflict: tribes in Sa’ada
are battling with a largely tribal military alongside tribes he has paid to fight on behalf of the
46
government. Meeting with tribal sheikhs in July 2008, Salih asked pro‐government tribesmen
to join the fight against the Houthis, enraging sheiks who believed that efforts to recruit loyal
Hashid to fight in Sa’ada would only exacerbate hostility between the tribes. As one sheikh
observed, “fomenting sedition this way may lead to revenge killings lasting for centuries to
come.”225
CRISIS IN SOUTH YEMEN:
While many might characterize the current crisis in South Yemen as one of separatism,226
the fact of the matter is that, by‐and‐large, demands in the South are made within the
framework of a unified Yemen and are similar in many aspects to demands in the North. As
April Longley and Abdul Ghani al‐Iryani explain, Southern demands fit into four interconnected
groups: “equal access to government jobs, services and benefits; political and economic
decentralization; establishment of the rule of law; and… improved stewardship of the national
economy,” especially natural resources.227 In fact, most of these demands are nothing more
than a desire to see the Document of Pledge and Accord, an agreement authored by a wide
swath of the Yemeni elite in 1994 to avoid civil war,228 carried out.
The main demand in the south comes from former southern military officers and
bureaucrats, who were forced into retirement soon after the civil war. Many feel their early
retirement, based solely on their being southerners, has left them with inadequate pensions.
They demand reinstatement to their positions as well as “equal access to government benefits
and services… amidst rising commodity prices, dismal living conditions, and little hope of
47
finding employment in the stagnant private sector.”229 After years of Sana’a not listening,
unrest in the South has increased markedly in the last few years.
Just as important to the South is the issue of oil. While the vast majority of oil is found in
the South, especially in the Hadramaut governorate, April Longley learned in an interview with
a JMP official that only one percent of oil revenue accrued to the local government. She claims
that southerners are more than happy to share their oil wealth, but feel marginalized in the
absence of a revenue sharing agreement. In an effort to mitigate this inequity, a leading the
Islahi MP from Hadramaut began collecting signatures to grant the region 20% of its revenues
in 2007.230
In the same year, another former MP (Nasser Al‐Khabji) created the Southern Mobility
Movement in order to raise the concerns of the south nationally and globally, as well as
attempt to unify southern groups in the face of government oppression.231 Nonetheless, the
majority of their peaceful protests have been met with regime violence. “In May 2008, riots
broke out in southern Yemen because of a sense among southerners that they [were] not
participating sufficiently in the economy or the decision making process.”232 And on July 7,
2008 (the 14th anniversary of the failed secession), peaceful protests turned into “armed
confrontations with security men” that left scores dead or injured.233
As mentioned previously, The JMP, led by the YSP, has taken up the cause of the southern
crisis. The JMP boycotted parliament last August over broken promises by the regime to
release political prisoners, many of whom were YSP members arrested on charges of instigating
unrest in the south.234 More recently, Islah has emphasized that conflict in the South is the
48
“result of authoritarian policies practiced by the regime,” including the exclusion of southerners
as ‘political partners’ who do not enjoy equal citizenship. They have called on the regime to
stop the repression of southern activists and the ‘militarization of civilian life,’ while demanding
an investigation of those within Yemen’s security apparatus suspected of killing protestors.235
TERRORISM:
When it comes to terrorism, the regime walks a thin line between acceptance and
rejection. After the conclusion of Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, many Yemeni jihadists
returned home intent on reproducing their accomplishments in Yemen. They also returned to
their homeland around the same time the two Yemens were unifying. As Gregory Johnsen
observed, “northern officials welcomed the influx of Afghan Arabs into the south, many of
whom were returning to family lands, and used them as a proxy to fight a low‐level and
unofficial war against the communists.”236 With the aid of the Salih regime, they built training
camps and received supplies.
Many of these ‘Afghan‐Arabs,’ to some degree controlled by the Salih regime, would
contribute to the defeat of the South’s bid for secession in 1994. Relatives of Salih kept them
provisioned while religious figures like Sheikh Zindani “provided religious cover for combating
the communists.” Many outsiders with a stake in the defeat of the YSP, such as Osama bin
Laden, provided financial assistance. The regime’s control over the jihadists was not total,
however, and events such as the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 were found to be
perpetrated by some of the same jihadists who had aided the Salih regime back in 1994.237
49
It has been asserted that a deal was struck between the Salih regime and jihadists, in which
freedom of movement in Yemen would be granted by the regime in exchange for their ‘good
behavior’ within its borders. Since 2006, however, terrorist activity inside Yemen has
significantly increased. Tourists are regularly killed, the most recent being a group of South
Koreans dying at the hands of a suicide bomber in March. At the same time, a “low‐level
bombing campaign against Western targets” 238 in the capital during 2008 culminated in the
twin car bombing of the US embassy on September 16th, killing 16 – six of which were militants.
“A little‐known Yemeni group that calls itself Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility [but] Yemeni
officials seemed skeptical…, saying they suspected Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, which has
become more active over the past year.”239
SALIH’S FUTURE:
The embattled president is feeling the heat. Faced with opposition‐supported unrest in
both the north and south, al‐Qaeda in Yemen recently announced the formation of a new
Arabian Gulf leadership led by its Yemeni branch.240 And in a recent closed parliamentary
discussion on issues of security and terrorism, both opposition and ruling party MPs accused
the government of being party to many of the terrorist acts that have occurred in Yemen in the
past few years.241 These political problems, while the lion’s share of the Yemeni regime’s
troubles, are exacerbated by the aforementioned ecological and economic concerns. This past
December, the regime made a fifty percent cut to the fiscal year 2009 budget resulting not from
their diminishing reserves, but in response to the precipitous fall in world crude prices.
Tellingly, the regime was quick to add that government salaries would not be cut.242
50
As we saw in Chapter One, Salih’s regime came together at the same time Yemen was
becoming a recipient of oil revenues and increased economic aid from abroad. But we have
also seen a diminishing pay‐out in patronage, which sustains the regime, as oil revenues have
declined. Looking at the crises that Salih faces, it may be that he feels that persecution of the
Houthis will rally Zindani’s salafist strain within Islah to support him at home, while potentially
finding a revenue stream abroad in Saudi Arabia as a reward for his support of Wahhabi Islam.
A welcome by‐product of his support for Zindani would be a fracture within Islah that puts the
JMP coalition at risk.
Yemen is truly on the brink of disaster. If it is true that “without the revenue from [oil] the
regime would fall,”243 then state failure may not be far off. Salih, however, has always been
adept at finding himself on top, and so the question of whether his regime will survive,
especially in light of the reprieve granted by the postponement of elections, may be a little
premature to answer. Nonetheless, with the benefit of this chapter’s summary of crises that
would face any ruler of Yemen, we can now make an effort to answer the question set out in
the beginning: Can Islah maintain its split with the regime, and will this broken relationship
doom the regime, leading toward real political pluralism in Yemen?
51
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
In prefacing his writing about the 1990s in Yemen, Paul Dresch wrote in 2000 that “the
nearer one comes to the present, the more difficult become problems of discretion, not to
mention those of secrecy and contrived illusion in political affairs.”244 Nevertheless, this paper
has shown a very real, and very pronounced, political evolution towards regime opposition on
the part of Islah in the last decade.
ISLAH’S METAMORPHOSIS; OR WILL THE PARTY BE ABLE TO MAINTAIN ITS SPLIT WITH THE REGIME?
We have seen that Islah was formed in 1990 as a peeling off of the most conservative
members of the GPC in an effort to thwart the elite pact brokered between the regimes of the
former North and South Yemens. Like the GPC, Islah was an umbrella party (for conservatives),
not necessarily a party with a cohesive platform. With the destruction of the YSP in 1994,
efforts were made by the Salih regime to marginalize or co‐opt Islah, which led many to defect
to the GPC. These efforts are best exemplified by Salih’s choice of Islahi ministerial
appointments following the war, as well as by the regime’s decision to disregard any potential
alliance with Islah during the parliamentary elections of 1997. Though prominent Islahis
52
continued to support the regime, many showed their dissatisfaction by entering into
conversation with the YSP’s opposition coalition (SCCO), leading to an exodus of conservative
businessmen by the end of the decade at the fear of regime retribution.
Because of Islah’s inability to successfully compete with Salih’s regime – and their
unwillingness to become a rubber‐stamp opposition – the party found itself in political disarray
over the next eight years following the parliamentary elections. While the Muslim Brotherhood
bloc was growing closer to opposition parties through various dialogues, the tribal and salafist
factions continued their support for the regime, with both Sheikh Abdullah and Zindani openly
supporting Salih’s presidential candidacy in 1999. Much of this disharmony within the party
was the result of a lack of equal access to political power. As we saw Carapico observe, the
political leadership in Sana’a in 1995 was virtually identical to its leadership in 1985. To counter
the regime’s grip on power, Muslim Brothers within Islah were partners in the foundation of
the JMP to safeguard as well as expand whatever democratic openings remained. Tribal
leaders, however, had little call to demand change as they were integrated into the regime’s
patronage machine.
The lead‐up to the 2006 presidential elections proved to be the moment when Islah finally
crossed the Rubicon. By 2005, the salafis had been marginalized by Muslim Brotherhood
members in the party. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood saw their opportunity to
ascend to the dominant position in the party when Sheikh Abdullah and President Salih, for all
intents and purposes, abrogated their alliance. With their dominant position within Islah
secure for the moment, they broke with the regime, endorsed the JMP oppositional platform,
53
and ran a presidential candidate against Salih. The momentousness of this occasion may have
been overshadowed by Sheikh Abdullah’s endorsement of Salih at the last moment as well as
the crushing defeat the JMP received at the polls. The fact that the JMP did not disintegrate
following the elections showed that a unified opposition to the status quo persisted.
In fact, the Islah‐led JMP has kept the regime’s feet to the fire. International organizations
had witnessed a great amount of regime interference in the 2006 electoral process, and had
brokered agreements to make the process more transparent and open between the regime and
opposition in the lead up to, and immediately following, those elections. Though the regime
may have ignored these agreements in 2006, the JMP would not allow it to happen again in
2009. In spite of inter‐ and intraparty differences in the JMP, they remained united in their
opposition to the regime’s manipulation of the political process through parliamentary walk‐
outs and boycotts, protests in civil society, and by maintaining a red line they are unwilling to
cross: the JMP will not participate in the electoral process until the regime amends both how
the elections are carried out constitutionally, and how the body that oversees this process
discharges its duties.
Along the way, two things occurred in 2007 which increased the likelihood that Islah will
remain steadfast in their opposition. In early 2007 Zindani was removed from his leadership
position in Islah, and, in late December, Sheikh Abdullah died. While the significance of
Zindani’s removal of from his position in Islah may be easy to discern, the future of Islah’s tribal
faction following Abdullah’s death is not. In February 2009, this writer received an email
correspondence from Dr. Mohammed al‐Qadhi, a Yemeni journalist and frequent writer on
54
tribal issues for the Yemen Times. In response to questions regarding the state of affairs within
the al‐Ahmar family following the death of Sheikh Abdullah, this writer learned that
Hamid is of course more prominent; you know Hamid statements during
presidential election in 2006 made people believe he is wholeheartedly with the
public concerns [emphasis added] but I believe all the sons are looking for their
own personal interests; Hamid is in the Islah because it gives him more power
and privilege to negotiate for more interests; Still, he is an interesting figure
and has potential future. He is more educated than his brothers. You know
these people are in different parties but they leave politics behind when it
comes to family; their family bond is stronger and they realize the more they
are together, the more they are influential and respected; this is why they all
are obedient to Sadeq who is now the successor of his father as sheikh of
Hashid tribe.245
The continuing importance of Hamid, and his attacks on the regime in spite of the
preeminence of his brother Sadeq, bodes well for the party’s independence. As we have seen,
his opposition to the regime corresponds with his father’s falling from grace with President
Salih, and the concomitant loss of patronage to the al‐Ahmar family specifically, and the Hashid
tribes in general. If al‐Qadhi is correct to assume Hamid is obedient to Sadeq, then it may be
that they and the Hashid Confederation – from which Salih draws much of his support – may be
considering the benefits of throwing their full overt support behind the JMP coalition. Tribal
resistance to voter registration this past fall may lead one to believe they were prepared to
resist the regime. Unfortunately, the recent postponement of parliamentary elections reveals
less than if elections had proceeded as planned.
The relationship between the tribal and Muslim Brotherhood members of Islah is still
evolving as a result of Sheikh Abdullah’s marginalization and death. It may also be that, as
55
formerly favorite sons of the regime, the tribal members will make efforts to realign the party
with the regime in the future. This is certainly in Salih’s mind as he makes overtures of
friendship to Sadeq al‐Ahmar. However, the tribal members of Islah have always been tied to
the regime through patronage. With at least two potential wars on his hands and a substantial
diminishment in oil revenues to prop up his patronage system, this option is becoming
increasing less likely.
Taking this murky and potentially unresolved issue into account, we can nonetheless
attempt to answer the question of whether Islah has the political courage and cohesiveness to
safeguard its recent break with the Salih regime and avoid co‐optation with the aim of fostering
increased pluralism. Without falling victim to the theory of the linear progression of
democracies (as Yemen itself may be termed a “stalled democracy”) the progressively more
tolerant trajectory of Islah over the last decade is unmistakable. Not only has the party
moderated their agenda, but they have learned to work across ideological divides, working now
with former enemies such as al‐Haqq and the YSP. Throughout this paper the evidence shows
that, barring some unforeseen political catastrophe, Islah will be able to maintain their break.
WILL ISLAH’S OPPOSITION BREAK SALIH’S RULE, LEADING TO GREATER POLITICAL PLURALISM?
As laid out in the body of this paper, threats to the regime stem not only from the Islah‐led
JMP, but from a multitude of other problems as addressed in Chapter Three.
During this process of opposition to the regime, Islah and the JMP have been quite adept at
taking advantage of the many crises facing the regime. At the beginning of their coalition, the
56
JMP did not have a clear position on the two main political issues facing the regime: Sa’ada
and the South. But as their dialogue became ever more fruitless with the regime, which proved
itself to not be very serious about democracy and transparency, the stronger the JMP position
became. Their identification with the Southern issue since 2007 has removed the opportunity
for the regime to use that situation as a wedge issue with the opposition. And in February
2009, the JMP upped the ante by demanding the involvement of the al‐Houthis in any dialogue
concerning the Sa’ada problem. Commenting on these developments, Dr. Abdul‐Kareem Al‐
Eryani (who conducted negotiations on the postponement of parliamentary elections with the
JMP on behalf of the regime) would admit that “the JMP has shown more unity recently.”246 As
one analyst has observed, “these issues represent a political record” that the opposition can
take advantage of.247
The JMP has been equally vocal on the issues of social and economic reform. Even prior to
the release of their political platform in 2005, they had raised their concerns about the need to
mitigate poverty, address Yemen’s water crisis, and the necessity to expand inadequate public
services.248 Up until now, the government of Yemen has done little to address these issues
because they did not have to. As we have seen, the water and food crises have been known to
the regime for decades, and their efforts to solve them, even if concerted, have come to little.
If oil was the goose that laid golden eggs for the regime, they have already killed it. It was
recently reported that oil production, which peaked at 450,000 bpd in 2003, will come in below
300,000 bpd in 2009. At the same time, domestic consumption of oil has doubled in the last
decade, now consuming more than 40% of domestic production at 120,000 bpd.249 Today, the
57
ruling authority is a ghost of its former self. “Full and proper government control barely
extends beyond the main urban population centres and in clusters around the oil and gas
producing areas.” The level of violence throughout the country has intensified as oil rents, the
principal source of regime patronage, have dwindled. On April 5, 2009, AME Info250 reported
that tribes – “as well as sectarian and ethnic groupings – compete more fiercely over already
fast‐diminishing resources, while the government's ability to buy support and balance groups
against one other wanes rapidly.251
In addition to oil depletion is water scarcity and food insecurity. In fact, the three problems
are intertwined and revolve around a single commodity, qat. As the largest earner of domestic
capital, as well as Yemen’s largest employer, the farming of this nutrition‐less plant (which can
loosely be equated with the past‐time of drinking alcohol in the West, and is a strong Yemeni
cultural identity marker) is slowly dehydrating the populace. Subsidized fuel is used to run bore
wells to irrigate the plant, in some places extracting water from basins at more than five times
the natural recharge rate.252 Little is being done by the regime and in 2008 it was estimated
that more than 140,000 hectares were planted with qat. This figure is similar to the increase in
domestic oil consumption: there is almost a doubling of acreage planted with qat compared to
a decade ago.253 With one‐third of agricultural devoted to qat, scant water supplies are being
used to irrigate “a plant with no nutritional value,” and qat continues to replace crops that
could be exported or used to reduce the importation of food.254
Laying aside the very serious issue of religious freedom in Sa’ada, conflict in both Sa’ada
and the south can be attributed to deep‐seated grievances towards a ruling party they feel has
58
passed them by with social and economic progress. As we have also seen, much of this unrest
in Yemen, at least in their recent manifestations, has arisen around the same time the county
seems to have reached peak oil.255 Obviously the regime in no longer in a position to address
societal inequity on a grand scale as their source of mitigation dries up. As a result, these
problems promise to get worse before they get better, and the regime will be forced to choose
– and wisely – where it expends its precious resources to rebuild good will: just recently
government soldiers engaged Houthis in a pitched battle only days after a government
announcement that state monies were being made available to rebuild Sa’ada after years of
conflict.256
Will Islah’s opposition, then, have the effect of breaking the Salih regime? And in the event
that the regime does splinter, will it lead to greater political pluralism in Yemen? In the last
year, not only has Islah (and the entire JMP) boycotted efforts to register citizens for upcoming
elections, but they were successful in shrewdly, and quite possibly cynically, jumping on the
bandwagon of demanding solutions for and lending peaceful support to those opposed to the
government in both Sa’ada and the South. That the regime was powerless to repress or break
this unified vocal opposition speaks volumes about the new political space that has been
opened up in Yemen. That the Islah‐led JMP was successful in having elections postponed as a
result of their demands not being met serves to underline their success.
In the most recent work of scholarship on Yemen, Sarah Phillips makes the observation
that, in 2005, Islah leaders were clear that they did not have capacity to form an alternate
government and were reluctant to oppose the government in such a way that might topple
59
it.257 She also claims that the JMP achieved in 2006 what had been its unspoken mandate for
many years, which was “to provoke debate and apply pressure on the president to reform
himself, without realistically endangering his job.”258
I would like to argue that when Islah members said they did not have the capacity to form
an alternative government, what they were truly insinuating was that they did not wish to run
the government. As this paper has shown, a group as pragmatic as they have shown
themselves to be can surely see the writing on the wall. In the event that the Salih regime falls
from power, the result is likely to be a failed state, armed to the teeth and torn by factionalism,
and relying on overexploited and diminishing resources. Something no rational political player
would want.
What they do want, and what they were not as successful at accomplishing in 2006 as
Phillips would contend, is a widening of the debate. As we have seen, the regime was unwilling
to countenance the unified opposition JMP even six months ago, much less following the 2006
elections when the regime ran roughshod over mutually approved agreements and subverted
the entire political process. But in 2008‐09, the debate was finally widened. This was not a
result of the regime merely acquiescing in their demands without a fight, but the result of a
level of courage and maturity in the opposition that was not there in 2006. This victory on the
part of the JMP may be the greatest step towards political pluralism in Yemen since unification.
As with Islah maintaining its break with the regime, barring a political catastrophe the events of
the last nine months in Yemen bode well for pluralist politics.
60
Islah then, does not desire to see the regime broken. Instead, they want Salih to reform.
They also want to be is a true partner in that reform. Again we return to Phillips:
Islah has increased its use of at least the vocabulary of democracy in framing its
political intentions and appears to see that it is the most likely beneficiary of
freely competitive elections. Its stated goals have changed markedly from
being centered on religious ideology to highlighting instead the importance of
consultation and reform. This move from polemic Islamist and antisecular
rhetoric to a platform of anticorruption and reform, and its membership in the
JMP, indicates a growing political pragmatism within the party. That there are
now more pronounced divisions between hard‐liners and moderates further
underlines this point.259
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This cautious optimism is as close as one can get to guessing at what kind of partner Islah
could truly be. And a definitive break between the ‘hard‐liners’ and the rest of Islah could
prove to bolster further the progressive elements in Islah and, by association, the entire
opposition. Two years is a long time, however. And the work that needs to be done is
enormous. While it gives the opposition time to press its advantage further, it also leaves
ample time for the regime to make inroads with one of the constituent parties in the JMP,
fracture the alliance, and return to business as usual. That would be a big mistake, laying bare
the true legacy of Salih’s regime: he fiddled while Rome burned.
61
ANNEX
THE JUNE 18TH AGREEMENT
(Agreement on principles to conduct free, fair, transparent, and safe elections in the upcoming
presidential and local council elections between the GPC and JMP)
As Yemen in this stage is up to the most important democratic event in the political life and
democratic practice which is the presidential and local council elections... and as political
parties‐ signing this agreement‐ are aware of the national responsibility they hold in practicing
their constitutional right which is built upon pluralism and peaceful transfer of power, and
responding to the call of serious dialogue directed by his Excellency the president of the
republic Ali Abdullah Saleh, and reinforcing the democratic process, and because of political
parties’ concern to actively and seriously participate in the upcoming presidential and local
council elections to reflect the reality of pluralism and the achievement of the principle of
peaceful transfer of power in responsible democratic atmosphere with absolute awareness that
competitive elections do not mean antagonism as much as they mean being ready and working
hard to serve the people in the best possible manner and deepening the principles of
partnership and democracy and confirming that dialogue is a tool of development and
transformation in all aspects of life. For that the political parties agreed upon the following:
First: The Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum:
It was agreed to add 2 members from JMP to the current SCER structure. For that the political
parties in parliament should provide a proposal to amend article, 19 Clause “A” of the law no 13
for the year 2001 regarding elections and referendum. The proposal should include amendment
request to expand SCER structure from 7 to 9 members from amongst the 15 member list that
were already nominated by the parliament.
Second: Formation of the elections commissions:
It was agreed to form the supervisory, main and sub elections commissions according to the
law in the upcoming presidential and local council elections based upon 54 percent to GPC and
46 percent to the JMP.
Third: The Voter Lists Record:
It was agreed to form a legal professional team from the GPC and JMP to be approved by the
SCER. This team will examine the voter Lists Record and take necessary legal procedures to
transfer any legal violations in the Record (voters’ lists) to the court aiming at clearing them
from the record. The SCER should allow this team to start its mission as soon as possible.
Fourth: Neutrality of State Media:
62
1. Giving all political parties participating in the elections and the presidential candidates
equal and enough space in the state run media to present their platforms and express
their opinions. This right shall not be restricted except in matters that come to
individuals’ private lives or their honor. Any person working in the public media who
shall violate the principle of neutrality shall be fired. SCER should itself observe the
neutrality of the state‐run media and receive and handle complaints from political
parties and candidates and refer those who are proven guilty to administrative or
judicial investigation according to a clear and transparent mechanism identified by
SCER; and,
2. SCER should make a media plan to ensure neutrality of state‐run media according to the
Law.
Fifth: Neutrality of Public Office:
The public office should not be used for the interest of a particular political party. All district
directors, governors and security and military leaders should be committed to neutrality
towards the competition between political parties and candidates in the elections and not
perform any campaign activities for or against any party or candidate during the electoral. Any
official or person holding public position is prohibited from donating or promising any project
from public money during the elections campaign. The SCER itself should monitor the neutrality
of public office and receive and handle complaints from political parties and candidates and
refer those who are proven guilty to administrative or judicial investigation according to a clear
and transparent mechanism identified by SCER.
Sixth: Public Money:
Using public money for a particular political party or candidate during elections is prohibited.
The money allocated according to the law for presidential candidates should be distributed
equally amongst all candidates under the observation of the parliament. Apart from that it is
prohibited to spend public money or from the budgets of ministries, associations, companies
and public authorities on elections campaigning. It is also prohibited to use public facilities,
mosques and prayers’ places for elections campaigning for or against any political party or
candidate during campaigning. The SCER itself should undertake supervising and monitoring
that. Those who prove to violate this during the elections campaign should be ceased from his
job and referred to administrative or judicial investigation according to a clear and transparent
mechanism identified by SCER. Local donations should be handled in a transparent way
according to the law. Any outside donation is prohibited.
Seventh: Neutrality of military and Security Forces:
The Supreme leader of the Military Forces should issue a directive to military and security
forces to confirm the right of military and security forces to practice their political right in
running for office and voting. Military and security leaders are prohibited from forcing or
compelling the individuals to vote for any political party or candidate. Campaigning is
prohibited inside military and security units and locations. This directive should be published in
state‐run and military media.
Eighth: Security Commissions
63
The tasks of the security commissions of the SCER and the security commissions under those
commissions are limited to protect the security of voting centers. They are prohibited from
interfering in the electoral in any manner. They should report to and receive their directives,
orders and instructions from the SCER. They should be headed by a member of the SCER.
Ninth: Political Party Observation Commissions:
Political party observation commissions shall be formed from all political parties. Every political
caucus should be represented by one observer in all voting centers. The observers shall not
interfere in the electoral process. Funding for this procedure shall come from government fund
for the electoral process.
Tenth: Transparency:
1. SCER shall inform the political parties and the public about all the steps it takes related
to its tasks; and,
2. Provide electronic versions of the voter lists records archived at the SCER to political
parties‐upon their request.
Eleventh: The Role of Women in the Democratic Process:
The role of women in the democratic process should reflect the leading Yemeni civilization
spirit and renew the human and dynamic balance in the mutual relationship between men and
women. For that Yemeni women and their constitutional and legal rights should be supported
without any undermining in any manner, morally of financially. That is because women are the
sisters of men. All political parties should make women’s political participation a national,
human and civilized goal.
Twelfth: things agreed to be addressed after the upcoming presidential and LC elections:
The following amendments to the law were agreed upon:
1. Re‐forming the SCER so that all its members should be judges who are known for their
qualifications, and impartiality. The mechanism of nominating and choosing them shall
be agreed upon… their rank should not be less than appeal court judge;
2. Restructuring the administrative and technical body of the SCER according to civil
service conditions and criteria. This should include SCER branches in governorates
(announcement of vacancy and competition amongst those who meet the conditions);
3. Electoral judicial guarantees; and,
4. Finalizing the process of making a civil record of all administrative units which should be
a reference to voters’ lists.
Implementation of this agreement shall start as soon it is signed.
Sanaa
Sunday 06.18.06
64
1
Some analysts have the budget cut at as much as 50%.
2
Hakim Almasmari, “Sa’ada All over Again,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=1&SubID=349; accessed March 11, 2009), March 11, 2009.
3
Pamela Hess, “Released Detainee now Yemen al‐Qaida commander,” Yahoo News, AP,
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_al_qaida; accessed Jan. 26, 2009), 1‐
24‐2009; Abdul‐Aziz Oudah, “Saudi al‐Qaeda announces alliance with Yemeni counterpart,” Yemen Observer
(http://www.yobserver.com/front‐page/10015651.html; accessed February 6, 2009), January 27, 2009.
4
The majority of these previously autonomous areas were controlled by “the great tribes.” In Robert D. Burrowes,
“Prelude to Unification: The Yemen Arab republic, 1962 – 1990,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 23,
No. 4 (Nov. 1991): pps. 488, 499.
5
Political parties were outlawed by the 1970 Yemeni Constitution.
6
Charles Dunbar, “U.S.‐ Yemeni Relations, 1990‐2005: Actions Speak Louder than Words,” unpublished paper for
presentation at the Middle East Studies Association annual meeting, Washington, D.C., November 20, 2005, pps.
19‐20.
7
For a full treatment of the agreement, see Askar Halwan Al‐Enazy, “’The International Boundary Treaty’ (Treaty of
Jeddah) Concluded between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni Republic on June 12, 2000,” The
American Journal of International Law, 96, No. 1 (Jan. 2002), pp. 161‐173.
8
Dunbar, “U.S. ‐ Yemeni Relations, 1990‐2005: Actions Speak Louder than Words,” pps. 26‐7.
9
“North” Yemen, or the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), had gained their independence in 1962 after the overthrow
of the Imamate. “South” Yemen, or the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), had gained their
independence in 1967 after ousting the British. Throughout this paper any references to pre‐unification Yemen’s
previously sovereign constituent nations will indicate the countries as either “North” or “South.”
10
Mohammed Bin Sallam, “Elections Postponed,” Yemen Times
(http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1237&p=front&a=1; accessed March 14, 2009), February 26, 2009.
11
Abdul‐Aziz Oudah, “European delegation mediates between JMP and GPC regarding upcoming elections,”
Yemen Observer (http://www.yobserver.com/front‐page/10015614.html; accessed January 26, 2009), January 24,
2009; Moneer Al‐Omari “EU Mission: We will not Observe Elections if Opposition not Involved,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/65/LocalNews/20082.htm; accessed January 26, 2009), January 26, 2009.
12
“Saleh Says Government Performance Must Be Evaluated,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=369&MainCat=3; accessed March 14, 2009),
March 12, 2009.
13
Sharp, “Where is the Stability Tipping Point?”
14
Gregory D. Johnsen, “Electoral Game of Chicken” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ‐ Arab Reform
Bulletin (www.CarnegieEndowment.org), February 2009.
15
Email correspondence between the author and Sarah Phillips, February 1, 2009.
16
The PDRY’s ruling party was the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP).
17
Sheila Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pg. 36.
18
Paul Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pg. 173; Robert D.
Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Yemen, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1995, pg. 192; In 1979, the U.S. had “an
eye on events in Iran and Afghanistan and [was] eager to strengthen relations with Saudi Arabia.” In Carapico, Civil
society in Yemen, pg. 38.
19
Schwedler, “Islam, Democracy, and the Yemeni State,” pps. 26, 31.
20
Ahmed A. Hezam Al‐Yemeni, The Dynamic of Democratisation – Political Parties in Yemen, Bonn: Friedrich‐Ebert‐
Stiftung, 2003, pg. 31; Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen, pg. 140; Sarah Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in
Regional Perspective, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008, pg. 45.
21
Augustus Richard Norton defines corporatism as ““A vertical organization of state and security (as opposed to
horizontal).” Discussion with the author, September 15, 2008.
22
April Longley, “The High Water Mark of Islamist Politics? The Case of Yemen,” The Middle East Journal, 61, no. 2
(Spring 2007): pg. 248.
65
23
Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen, p. 57.
24
Eva Bellin, “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective,”
Comparative Politics 36, no. 2 (January 2004): pg. 148.
25
Robert D Burrowes and Catherine M. Kaspar, “The Salih Regime and the Need for a Credible Opposition,” The
Middle East Journal 61, no. 2 (Spring 2007): pps. 264‐5.
26
Sarah Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System,” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero072805.html; accessed online 10/02/2008), 28 July 2005.
27
“The Salih regime began in 1978 with little political support outside the army, an army soon to be demoralized
and discredited by defeat in the second border war with the PDRY.” In Burrowes, “Prelude to Unification: The
Yemen Arab republic, 1962 – 1990,” pg. 493.
28
Lisa Wedeen, “Seeing Like a Citizen, Acting Like a State: Exemplary events in Unified Yemen,” In Counter‐
Narratives, eds. Madawi Al‐Rasheed, Robert Vitalis, 247 ‐ 285. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004, pg. 250. Also
see Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 64: “Yemen’s liberalization
was initiated at the elite‐level, but not for the immediate purpose of deflating popular dissent. Rather, the
processes resulted from an elite‐level pact – conducted secretly between president Salih and president al‐Bid – to
unify the north and south.”
29
“The Sheikh of all Sheikhs,” Arabia Felix (http://www.arabia‐felix.com/arabia‐felix‐67.html; accessed April 23,
2009), No. 3.
30
Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Yemen, Lanham, pg. 69.
31
Gregory D. Johnsen, “Profile of Sheikh Abd al‐Majid al‐Zindani,” The Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor
(www.jamestown.org), Volume IV, Issue 7: 6 April 2006.
32
Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, pg. 142.
33
Jillian Schwedler, “Islam, Democracy, and the Yemeni State,” Presented to the Center for the Study of Islam and
Democracy Second Annual Conference, Islam, Democracy and the Secularist State in the Post‐modern Era, April 7,
2001, pg. 27.
34
Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Yemen, pg. 427
35
Johnsen, “Profile of Sheikh Abd al‐Majid al‐Zindani.”
36
Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” pg. 575.
37
Paul Dresch and Bernard Haykel, “Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and Tribesfolk in Yemen,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27, No. 4 (November 1995), pg. 407.
38
Jillian Schwedler, “Islam, Democracy, and the Yemeni State,” Presented to the Center for the Study of Islam and
Democracy Second Annual Conference, Islam, Democracy and the Secularist State in the Post‐modern Era, April 7,
2001, pg. 27.
39
Al‐Yemeni, The Dynamic of Democratisation, pps. 25, 43.
40
Al‐Yemeni, The Dynamic of Democratisation, pg. 50; Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, pg. 187.
41
Charles Dunbar, “The Unification of Yemen: Process, Politics, and Prospects,” The Middle East Journal, 46, no. 3
(Summer 1992): pg. 473.
42
Sarah Phillips, “Evaluating Political Reform in Yemen,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Democracy
and Rule of Law Program, paper 80, February 2007, pg. 6.
43
Paul Dresch and Bernard Haykel, “Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and Tribesfolk in Yemen,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27, no. 4 (November 1995): pg. 406.
44
Ibid, pg. 413.
45
Al‐Yemeni, The Dynamic of Democratisation, pg. 47
46
Jillian Schwedler, “Yemen’s Aborted Opening,” Journal of Democracy, 13, no. 4 (October 2002): pg. 53.
47
Dresch and Haykel, “Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and Tribesfolk in Yemen,” pg. 426.
48
Al‐Yemeni, The Dynamic of Democratisation, pg. 51
49
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 149.
50
Schwedler, “Yemen’s Aborted Opening,” pg. 52
51
Dresch and Haykel, “Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and Tribesfolk in Yemen,” pg. 406.
66
52
Longley, “The High Water Mark of Islamist Politics? The Case of Yemen,” pg. 257.
53
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 155.
54
Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen, pg. 144.
55
Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” pg. 568. Zaydism is considered a Shia sect.
The Kingdom of Yemen – overthrown by Egyptian and Yemeni republican forces in 1962 – was ruled by a Zaydi
Imam. For a more in‐depth look at Zaydism and the Yemeni Imamate, see Fuad Khuri, Imams and Emirs: State,
Religion, and Sects in Islam, London: Saqi Books, 1990; and Paul Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
56
Eric Watkins, “Landscape of Shifting Alliances,” The Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor
(www.jamestown.org), Volume II, Issue 7: 8 April 2004, pg. 5
57
Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen, pg. 143; Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and
Yemen, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pg. 172.
58
Dresch and Haykel, “Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and Tribesfolk in Yemen,” pg. 418.
59
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 176.
60
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 140.
61
Dresch and Haykel, “Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and Tribesfolk in Yemen,” pg. 416.
62
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pps. 183‐4.
63
Watkins “Landscape of Shifting Alliances,” pg. 4.
64
Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen, pg. 42.
65
Ibid, pg. 173.
66
Sarah Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System,” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero072805.html; accessed online 10/02/2008), 28 July 2005.
67
Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System.”
68
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 62.
69
Watkins, “Landscape of Shifting Alliances,” pg. 5.
70
Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen, pg. 124; Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, pg. 142.
71
The elections had been first planned for November 1992, but had been “postponed at the eleventh hour.” In
Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, pg. 193.
72
Sheila Carapico, “Elections and Mass Politics in Yemen,” Middle East Report, No. 185 (Dec. 1993), pg. 2.
73
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 184.
74
Carapico, “Elections and Mass Politics in Yemen.”
75
Ibid.
76
Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, pg. 194.
77
Islah “identified themselves as Islamist, glossing over the real differences within and beyond the party
among Wahhabis, Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other tendencies, some close to the Saudi
monarchy and others associates of its critics. Some Islah candidates were sage old ulama in turbans,
others recent graduates from al‐Azhar in Cairo or schools in Saudi Arabia or Sudan. They made ample use
of networks within mosques and the social centers run by the Islah Social Welfare Society.” In Carapico,
Civil Society in Yemen, pg. 144
78
While the GPC took 120 seats, Islah gained 62 seats to the YSP’s 56. In the former YAR, the GPC took 48% of the
vote while in the former PDRY, the YSP took 73%.
79
Dresch and Haykel, “Stereotypes and Political Styles,” pg. 407.
80
Chapter seven of Sheila Carapico’s Civil Society in Yemen, entitled “Civic responses to civil crisis,” does a
masterful job relating events that led to the civil war. Pages 170‐200, en passim. Also see contributors to Jamal S.
al‐Suwaidi, ed., The Yemeni War of 1994, London: Saqi Books, 1995 for multiple contemporary interpretations of
the 1994 war.
81
Sheila Carapico, “From Ballot Box to Battlefield: The War of the Two ‘Alis,” Middle East Report, No. 190 (Sep. ‐
Oct. 1994), pg. 24.
67
82
Michaelle Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” International Journal of Middle
East Studies, 39 (2007): pg. 569.
83
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 187.
84
Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, pg. 197.
85
“Yemen Claims Victory in Civil War after Seizing Rebel City.” New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com;
accessed online 02/22/2009), 08 July 1994.
86
Phillips, “Evaluating Political Reform in Yemen,” pg. 7. One of the reforms was to make the sharia the ‘sole’ as
opposed to ‘principal’ source of law.
87
Ibid. As equally important, “The once‐robust southern court system that was removed by the constitutional
amendments has been gradually replaced by a system more prone to patronage‐based affiliation, much to the
infuriation of many southerners. The consolidation of the patronage system is one of the most important legacies
of the postwar period and probably the most antithetical to the development of democracy.” (pg. 8).
88
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 94.
89
Ibid, pg. 188.
90
Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen, pg. 59.
91
Ibid, pps. 188‐192 en passim.
92
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 90.
93
Ibid, pg. 107.
94
Ibid, pps. 104‐5.
95
Schwedler, “Islam, Democracy, and the Yemeni State.”
96
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 113.
97
Fattah, Khaled. “Cross‐Ideological Coalitions in Yemen.” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1141&p=local&a=8; accessed online 04/14/2008), 27 March 2008.
98
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pg. 113.
99
Lisa Wedeen, “Seeing Like a Citizen, Acting Like a State: Exemplary events in Unified Yemen.” In Counter‐
Narratives, eds. Madawi Al‐Rasheed, Robert Vitalis, 247 ‐ 285. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004, pg. 250;
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, pg. 114. The ‘deal’ was that the GPC would take 160 seats and Islah would take
80. In Carapico, Civil society in Yemen, pg. 194.
100
At the time, the YSP had little support regardless. Brian Whitaker suggests the YSP boycott was to save them
the humiliation of a grand defeat. In Brian Whitaker, “Doves and eagles fight for votes: Yemen prepares for
elections,” The Guardian, April 24, 1997.
101
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, pg. 195.
102
Islah’s message is so incoherent that Yemeni liberals suspect the party to be nothing more than a façade
obscuring fundamentalist goals. See Phillips, “Evaluating Political Reform in Yemen,” pg. 20.
103
Longley, “The High Water Mark of Islamist Politics?” pg. 255.
104
Gregory D. Johnsen, “The Election Yemen Was Supposed to Have,” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero100306.html; accessed online 10/02/2008), 03 Oct. 2006.
105
Sarah Phillips is being specific when she contends that the ‘tribal group piece’ of Islah had strong ties to the GPC
leadership and Salih. In Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 53.
106
Schwedler, “Yemen’s Aborted Opening,” pg. 52.
107
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, pg. 195; “From its earliest stages until today, the Muslim Brotherhood trend
within Islah has been routinely frustrated by frequent statements by party leaders like Shaykh ‘Abd Allah, al‐
Zindani, and al‐Daylami that contradict official party positions.” In Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, pg. 178.
108
Charles Dunbar, “The Unification of Yemen: Process, Politics, and Prospects,” The Middle East Journal, 46, no. 3
(Summer 1992), pps. 475‐6.
109
Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” p. 569.
110
The past Secretary General of Islah, Muhammad al‐Yadumi, freely admitted his party was far from cohesive, but
argued that made the party democratic. In Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, pg. 74.
68
111
Lisa Wedeen, “Seeing Like a Citizen, Acting Like a State: Exemplary events in Unified Yemen,” In Counter‐
Narratives, eds. Madawi Al‐Rasheed, Robert Vitalis, 247 ‐ 285. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004, pg. 250.
112
Sheila Carapico, “How Yemen’s Ruling Party Secured an Electoral Landslide.” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero051603.html), 16 May 2003.
113
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen, pps. 107, 96.
114
Longley, “The High Water Mark of Islamist Politics? The Case of Yemen,” pps. 256‐7.
115
Ibid, pg. 257.
116
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, pg. 154.
117
Ibid, pg. 108. When Schwedler wrote this passage, she had concluded that Islah had flirted with cooperation,
but ultimately prioritized its relations with the Salih regime.
118
Ibid, pg. 14. Political Islam is not an ideology, though an Islamist political actor may be ideological to the extent
their worldview is comprised of a “cohesive and closed set of meanings and practices that largely exclude
alternative understandings or perspectives.” (pg. 120) Therefore moderation is not a change in political behavior
(as the political actor could be faking) but worldview or ideological moderation.
119
Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” pps. 577‐8.
120
Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, pg. 147.
121
Schwedler, “Islam, Democracy, and the Yemeni State,” pg. 35.
122
Jarallah was deputy secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party
123
François Burgat, “Yemen: On Which Side?” Le Monde Diplomatique, 9 April 2003
124
Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” pg. 576.
125
Ibid, pps. 577‐8.
126
“Yemeni Speaker says his Islamist party ‘coordinating’ with Socialists,” Al‐Zaman, London, July 27, 2001.
127
Jillian Schwedler, “Yemen’s Aborted Opening,” Journal of Democracy, 13, no. 4 (October 2002): pg. 48.
128
Sheila Carapico, Lisa Wedeen, Anna Wuerth, “The Death and Life of Jarallah Omar,” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero123102.html), 31 Dec. 2002.
129
The man who shot him, Ali Ahmed Jarallah, was executed on 11/27/2005 in Sana’a. “Yemen Executes Muslim
Cleric,” AlJazeera.net (http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=16565), 30 Nov. 2005.
130
Ibid.
131
Robert Burrowes claimed the JMP to be a ‘credible’ opposition which needs to move at a faster pace in: Robert
D Burrowes and Catherine M. Kaspar, “The Salih Regime and the Need for a Credible Opposition,” The Middle East
Journal 61, no. 2 (Spring 2007), pg. 268.
132
By 2003 things were in such disarray with Islah that it looked like there might be 3 candidate lists. In Browers,
“Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” pg. 575.
133
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 54.
134
Ibid, pg. 158.
135
Loosely translated as “No Sanhan after today.” Salih is a member of the Sanhan Tribe, which is a part of the
larger Hashid Tribal Federation.
136
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 164. (But the GPC and Islah were still
talking agreements as late as March 2006.)
137
“JMP Document on National and Political Reform.”
138
Sarah Phillips, “Foreboding About the Future in Yemen,” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero040306.html; accessed online 10/02/2008), 03 Apr. 2006.
139
Ibid.
140
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 164.
141
Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” pg. 579.
142
“Yemen's Islamist party ousts Al Zindani who US suspects is terror financier,” Gulf News
(http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/03/01/10107730.html; accessed March 14, 2008), March 1, 2007.
143
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pps. 52‐53.
69
144
Ibid, pg. 165. Phillips makes it clear that Islah did not change how it makes decisions internally, which at the
time remained uncompetitive – much like the internal workings of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
145
Schwedler, “Yemen’s Aborted Opening,” pg. 54.
146
Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” pg. 578
147
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 170.
148
“In the local council races, the GPC won 85 percent of governorate level seats. Islah, the largest opposition
party, won 7 percent of seats on the governorate councils. The only other party to win significant numbers of
seats, the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP), won 3 percent of the governorate council seats.” In National Democratic
Institute, “Report on the 2006 Presidential and Local Elections in the Republic of Yemen,” pg. 11.
149
Ibid, pps. 246‐7.
150
“Islah was too associated with the regime to claim the moral high ground, yet too distant to guarantee political
patronage if elected.” In Longley, “The High Water Mark of Islamist Politics? The Case of Yemen,” pg. 253.
151
Robert Burrowes, “What is to be done – now?” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=945&p=opinion&a=2; accessed online 10/02/2008), 11 May 2006.
152
Gregory D. Johnsen, “The Election Yemen Was Supposed to Have.” More optimistically, Michaelle Browers
wrote that one of the main goals of Shamlan’s presidential candidacy was to circulate the JMP reform initiative, a
text she believes is “a carefully crafted text” that makes “a significant step towards forging an effective,
substantive, and unified oppositional alliance.” Where many saw failure, Browers saw the construction of a
foundation. In Browers, “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties,” pg. 579.
153
Donna Abu‐Nasr, “Yemeni Opposition Threatens Protest,” The Washington Post
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092200956_pf.html; accessed
March 2, 2009), September 22, 2006.
154
European Union Election Observation Mission: Republic of Yemen, “Presidential and Local Elections – 20
September 2006, Preliminary Statement,” Sana’a, 21 September 2006.
155
Successor organization to the SEC.
156
National Democratic Institute, “Yemen 2006 Voter Registration Update,” Monitoring Report.
157
National Democratic Institute, “Agreement Between the GPC and JMP,” June 18, 2006.
158
National Democratic Institute, “Report on the 2006 Presidential and Local Elections in the Republic of Yemen,”
pg. 10.
159
European Union Election Observation Mission, “Yemen 2006: Final Report,” pps. 34‐40.
160
Mohammed al‐Kibsi, “Parliament rejects amendments, votes for 2001 elections law,” Yemen Observer
(http://www.yobserver.com/front‐page/10014784.html; accessed March 18, 2009), August 19, 2008.
161
Mohammed al Qadhi, “Yemen’s rulers refuse to delay vote,” The National
(http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081115/FOREIGN/361708031/1011/ART; accessed March 13, 2009),
November 15, 2008.
162
Moneer Al‐Omar, “GPC Presents Proposals for Forming SCER; JMP not Pleased Yet,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/35/LocalNews/20082.htm; accessed February 26, 2009), June 23, 2008.
163
“JMP Parliamentarian blocks suspend boycott of attending sessions,” Saba
(http://www.sabanews.net/en/print158367.htm; accessed February 26, 2009), July 06, 2008.
164
“GPC confirms agreement with JMP on election amendments, JMP denies,” News Yemen
(http://www.newsyemen.net/en/view_news.asp?sub_no=3_2008_08_03_7359; accessed January 18, 2009),
August 3, 2008.
165
Islah’s General Secretary Abdul Wahab Al‐Anesi also sought to link the JMP’s dissatisfaction with the electoral
process to wider unresolved concerns across the country, specifically mentioning the regime’s inability to resolve
the crisis in the South. In Hasan Al‐Zaidi, “Election Crisis Still Ongoing; Ruling Party and Opposition Change
Accusations,” Yemen Post (http://www.yemenpost.net/41/LocalNews/20084.htm; accessed March 13, 2009),
August 4, 2008.
70
166
Abdul Rahim Al‐Showthabi, “Quitting Alliance with Ruling Party; Arab Baath Socialist Party Joins
Opposition JMP,” Yemen Post (http://www.yemenpost.net/42/LocalNews/20082.htm; accessed January 12, 2009),
August 11, 2008.
167
“President Saleh orders political detainees be released,” News Yemen
(http://www.newsyemen.net/en/view_news.asp?sub_no=3_2008_08_16_7381; accessed January 12, 2009),
August 16, 2008.
168
“Parliament majority rejects election law amendments, JMP condemns,” News Yemen
(http://www.newsyemen.net/en/view_news.asp?sub_no=3_2008_08_18_7383; accessed January 12, 2009),
August 18, 2008.
169
von Ferry Biedermann, “Disquiet over rise of Yemen's self‐appointed moral police,” Financial Times Deutschland
(http://www.ftd.de/karriere_management/business_english/:Business‐English‐Disquiet‐over‐rise‐of‐Yemen‐s‐self‐
appointed‐moral‐police/428275.html; accessed January 4, 2009), September 2, 2008.
170
Mohammed Bin Sallam, “Opposition threatens to escalate protests, Saleh vows to retaliate,” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1183&p=front&a=2; accessed August 24, 2008), August 20, 2008;
Hasan Al‐Zaidi, “Saleh Seeks to Win Pressmen’s Loyalty,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/45/reports/20082.htm; accessed September 01, 2008), September 01, 2008.
171
Al‐Khaleej, “Interview with Secretary General of the Opposing Islah Party Abdul Wahab Al‐Anesi,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/51/InvestigationAndInterview/20081.htm; accessed October 14, 2008), October 13,
2008.
172
“Opposition threatens to resort to international justice,” Al Sahwa (http://www.alsahwa‐
yemen.net/view_nnews.asp?sub_no=401_2008_10_23_66448; accessed October 24, 2008), October 23, 2008;
“President assigns al‐Eryani to contact JMP leadership,” Saba (http://www.sabanews.net/en/news166717.htm;
accessed October 24, 2008), October 23, 2008.
173
Mohammed Bin Sallam, “Protests against voter registration process in many governorates,” Yemen Times
(http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1209&p=front&a=1; accessed November 21, 2008), November 19, 2008.
174
“Tension over upcoming parliamentary elections on the rise: coverage,” News Yemen
(http://www.newsyemen.net/en/view_news.asp?sub_no=3_2008_11_23_7524; accessed November 25, 2008),
November 23, 2008.
175
Ibid.
176
“Parliament extends local councils term, JMP condemns,” News Yemen
(http://www.newsyemen.net/en/print.asp?sub_no=3_2008_11_24_7527; accessed November 28, 2008),
November 24, 2008.
177
“Interview with JMP Spokesperson Mohammed Al‐Mansour,” Ahale Newspaper in cooperation with the Yemen
Post (http://www.yemenpost.net/60/InvestigationAndInterview/20081.htm; accessed December 24, 2008),
December 22, 2008.
178
“Yemen: Troops Fire on Opposition Protest,” New York Times
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/world/middleeast/28briefs‐TROOPSFIREON_BRF.html?ref=world; accessed
November 28, 2008), November 28, 2008.
179
Ahmed Al‐Haj, “Yemeni police clash with protesters,” Associated Press
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008‐11‐27‐1279766940_x.htm; accessed November 28, 2008),
November 28, 2008.
180
Abdul‐Aziz Oudah, “European delegation mediates between JMP and GPC regarding upcoming elections,”
Yemen Observer (http://www.yobserver.com/front‐page/10015614.html; accessed January 26, 2009), January 24,
2009.
181
Moneer Al‐Omari, “EU Mission: We will not Observe Elections if Opposition not Involved,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/65/LocalNews/20082.htm; accessed January 26, 2009), January 26, 2009.
182
Abdul‐Aziz Oudah, “Government addresses irregularities in electoral list,” Yemen Observer
(http://www.yobserver.com/front‐page/10015721.html; accessed February 6, 2009), February 5, 2009.
71
183
Muneer Ahmad Qaed, “Real Change Hampered by Political Maneuvering,” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1232&p=opinion&a=2; accessed February 16, 2009), February 9,
2009.
184
Abdul‐Slam Al‐Qarari, “Is Yemen really in political crisis?” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1231&p=opinion&a=3; accessed February 5, 2009), February 4,
2009.
185
Mohammed Bin Sallam, “Parliament votes on election law amendments again,” Yemen Times
(http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1231&p=local&a=1; accessed February 5, 2009), February 4, 2009.
186
“Al‐Anisi: Yemen's elections must be free and fair,” Al‐Sahwa
(http://www.alsahwanet.net/view_nnews.asp?sub_no=402_2009_03_12_69202; accessed March 30, 2009),
March 13, 2009.
187
Moneer Al‐Omari & Sahar Al‐Sharjabi, “Ruling Party and Opposition reach Terms; Elections Delayed Two Years,”
Yemen Post (http://www.yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=100&SubID=296&MainCat=6; accessed March
14, 2009), March 12, 2009.
188
“Parliament approves postponing poll," Al Sahwa (http://www.alsahwa‐
yemen.net/view_nnews.asp?sub_no=402_2009_02_26_68918; accessed March 1, 2009), February 26, 2009;
"Parliamentary Elections to be Postponed Two Years," Yemen Post
(http://yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=265&MainCat=3; accessed March 1, 2009), February
28, 2009.
189
Moneer Al‐Omari, “Top Ten Events of 2008,” Yemen Post (http://www.yemenpost.net/61/Reports/20081.htm;
accessed December 29, 2009), December 29, 2008.
190
Najeeb Al‐Yafe', “The Dark Future of Yemen's Ruling Party and Opposition,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/64/Reports/20083.htm; accessed January 21, 2009) January 19, 2009.
191
Abdul‐Slam Al‐Qarari, “Is Yemen really in political crisis?” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1231&p=opinion&a=3; accessed February 5, 2009), February 4,
2009.
192
Nadia Al‐Saqqaf, “Things that could go right in 2009,” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/page.shtml?i=1229&p=view; accessed February 1, 2009), January 26, 2009.
193
“Yemen Flood Toll Nears 200,” Al‐Jazeera
(http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/10/20081028214027729135.html; accessed October 31,
2008), October 29, 2008.
194
“YEMEN: Food insecurity stalks Hadramaut Governorate,” IRIN News
(http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81642; accessed March 17, 2009), 25 November 2008.
195
“YEMEN: "The most food‐insecure country in the Middle East," IRIN News
(http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82966; March 17, 2009), February 17, 2009.
196
Intissar Fakir, “Economic and Regional Challenges,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ‐ Arab Reform
Bulletin (www.CarnegieEndowment.org), July/August 2008.
197
MENA DEVELOPMENT REPORT: “Making the Most of Scarcity: Accountability for Better Water Management
Results in the Middle East and North Africa.” The World Bank, Pub 41113, 2007, pg. 77.
198
“Yemen Economic Update, Summer 2008.” World Bank Group, Sana’a Office, pg. 16.
199
“Economic Growth in the Republic of Yemen.” World Bank, World Bank Publications, 2002.
200
Lenard Milich and Mohammed al‐Sabbry, “The ‘Rational Peasant’ vs. Sustainable Livelihoods: the Case of Qat in
Yemen,” The University of Arizona, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
(http://ag.arizona.edu/~lmilich/yemen.html; accessed online 10/17/2008). Originally published in Development
(1995:3).
201
“Yemen: Qat Cultivation Threatening Water Resources, Specialists Warn,” IRIN: the humanitarian news and
analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=75184; accessed online 10/19/2008).
202
Hill, “Yemen: Fear of Failure,” pg. 6.
72
203
Longley and al‐Iryani, “Fighting Brushfires with Batons: An Analysis of the Political Crisis in South Yemen,” pg.
12.
204
Franz Gerner and Silvana Tordo, “Republic of Yemen: A Natural Gas Incentive Framework,” World Bank, ESMAP,
Formal Report 327/07, 2008, pg. 1.
205
Gerner and Tordo, “Republic of Yemen: A Natural Gas Incentive Framework,” pps. 9‐10.
206
Sarah Phillips, “Evaluating Political Reform in Yemen,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Democracy
and Rule of Law Program, paper 80, February 2007, pg. 17.
207
Ahmad Al‐Jarallah, “An interview with the President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh,” as reproduced in the Yemen
Post (http://www.yemenpost.net/58/InvestigationAndInterview/20081.htm; accessed December 3, 2008),
December 1, 2008.
208
Gerner and Tordo, “Republic of Yemen: A Natural Gas Incentive Framework,” pps. 9, 116‐8.
209
Hill, “Yemen: Fear of Failure,” pg. 8.
210
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 71.
211
Gregory D. Johnsen and Christopher Boucek, “The Well Runs Dry,” Foreign Policy
(http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4717; accessed March 2, 2009), February 2009.
212
Mohammed bin Sallam, “Rebellion terminated,” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=772&p=front&a=1; accessed March 09, 2009), September 13, 2004.
213
Ginny Hill, “Yemen: Fear of Failure,” Chatham House, Briefing Paper MEP BP 08/03, November 2008, pg. 5; The
Salih regime may claim the Zaydis’ Shiite identity points to Iranian meddling in what the regime claims to be a
battle with terrorists, there is no firm evidence to support this claim In Johnsen and Boucek, “The Well Runs Dry.”
214
Hill, “Yemen: Fear of Failure,” pg. 5.
215
Mohammed bin Sallam, “With top Salafi leader Al‐Zindani at his side, Saleh calls for recruiting tribesmen to fight
Houthis,” Yemen Times (http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1171&p=front&a=1; accessed March 09, 2009),
July 09, 2008.
216
Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System.”
217
Shelagh Weir, “A Clash of Fundamentalisms: Wahhabism in Yemen,” Middle East Report, No. 204 (July ‐
September 1997): pg. 22.
218
Arafat Mudabish, “Jihadist Groups in Yemen,” Asharq Alawsat
(http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=4401; accessed April 3, 2009), April 4, 2006.
219
Phillips, “Cracks in the Yemeni System.”
220
Iris Glosemeyer, “Local Conflict, Global Spin: An Uprising in the Yemeni Highlands,” The Middle East Report, No.
232 (Autumn 2004), pg. 46.
221
Mohammed bin Sallam, “Situation in Sa’ada likely to erupt, Government‐Houthi relations remain tense,” Yemen
Times (http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1238&p=front&a=1; accessed March 18, 2009), March 1,
2008.
222
Mohammed bin Sallam, “New military reinforcements and army mobilizations threaten to start a sixth war in
Sa’ada,” Yemen Times (http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1240&p=local&a=1; accessed March 18,
2009), March 8, 2008.
223
Al‐Khaleej, “Interview with Secretary General of the Opposing Islah Party Abdul Wahab Al‐Anesi,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/51/InvestigationAndInterview/20081.htm; accessed October 14, 2008), October 13,
2008.
224
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 71.
225
Mohammed bin Sallam, “With top Salafi leader Al‐Zindani at his side, Saleh calls for recruiting tribesmen to fight
Houthis,” Yemen Times (http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1171&p=front&a=1; accessed March 09, 2009),
July 09, 2008.
226
Hill, “Yemen: Fear of Failure,” pg. 5.
227
April Longley and Abdul Ghani al‐Iryani, “Fighting Brushfires with Batons: An Analysis of the Political Crisis in
South Yemen,” The Middle East Institute, Policy Brief No. 7, February 2008, pg. 2.
228
Carapico, Civil society in Yemen, pg. 178.
73
229
Longley and al‐Iryani, “Fighting Brushfires with Batons,” pg. 2.
230
Ibid, pg. 3.
231
“An Interview with Nasser Al‐Khabji, Leader in the Southern Mobility Movement,” Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=297&MainCat=4; accessed March 14, 2009),
March 12, 2009.
232
Fakir, “Economic and Regional Challenges.”
233
Moneer Al‐Omari, “Top Ten Events of 2008,” Yemen Post (http://www.yemenpost.net/61/Reports/20081.htm;
accessed December 29, 2009), December 29, 2008.
234
Gregory D. Johnsen, “Electoral Game of Chicken,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ‐ Arab Reform
Bulletin (www.CarnegieEndowment.org), February 2009.
235
“Islah urges authorities to recognize South issue,” Al‐Sahwa (http://www.alsahwa‐
yemen.net/view_nnews.asp?sub_no=406_2009_03_14_69225; accessed March 26, 2009), March 14, 2009.
236
Gregory D. Johnsen, “The Resiliency of Yemen’s Aden‐Abyan Islamic Army,” The Jamestown Foundation
Terrorism Monitor (www.jamestown.org), Volume IV, Issue 14: 13 July 2006.
237
Ibid.
238
Hill, “Yemen: Fear of Failure,” pg. 4.
239
Robert F. Worth, “10 Are Killed in Bombings at Embassy in Yemen.” The New York Times
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/world/middleeast/18yemen.html?fta=y; accessed September 17, 2008),
September 17, 2008.
240
Abdul‐Aziz Oudah, “Saudi al‐Qaeda announces alliance with Yemeni counterpart,” Yemen Observer
(http://www.yobserver.com/front‐page/10015651.html; accessed January 30. 2009), January 27, 2009.
241
Fuad Rajeh, “MPs Say Government Aided Terrorists,” Yemen Post
(http://yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=435&MainCat=3; accessed March 30, 2009), March 23,
2009.
242
Moneer Al‐Omari, “Prompted by Collapse of Oil Prices; Cabinet Cuts 50 Percent of 2009 Budget, Yemen Post
(http://www.yemenpost.net/60/LocalNews/20083.htm; accessed January 3, 2009), December 22, 2008.
243
Longley and al‐Iryani, “Fighting Brushfires with Batons,” pg. 12.
244
Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, pg. 183.
245
Email correspondence between Dr. Mohammed al‐Qadhi and the author, February 18, 2009.
246
Email correspondence between Dr. Abdul‐Kareem Al‐Eryani and the author, March 9, 2009.
247
Email correspondence between Dr. Mohammed al‐Qadhi and the author, February 18, 2009.
248
“The Yemeni government spends only 2 per cent of its budget on health, which does not make any economic
sense.” In “Yemen struggles with a small energy base,” Oil and Gas News Worldwide
(http://www.oilandgasnewsworldwide.com/bkArticlesF.asp?IssueID=527&Section=3838&Article=25079; accessed
April 5, 2009), July 28, 2008
249
“Yemen struggles with a small energy base,” Oil and Gas News Worldwide
(http://www.oilandgasnewsworldwide.com/bkArticlesF.asp?IssueID=527&Section=3838&Article=25079; accessed
April 5, 2009), July 28, 2008.
250
A Middle East business resource website.
251
“Yemen draws up incentives to revive IOC upstream interest,” AME Info
(http://www.ameinfo.com/191387.html; accessed April 5, 2009), April 5, 2009.
252
Julie de Pimodan, “Yemen Between Qat and Food,” AlJazeera.Net
(http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/06/20086151725425620.html; accessed online 10/10/2008),
07 June 2008.
253
Watheq Shadhili, “Wheat or Qat!” Yemen Times
(http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1133&p=opinion&a=3; accessed online 10/25/2008), 28 Feb ‐ 02
March 2008.
74
254
Brian Whitaker, “Where the qat is out of the bag,” The Guardian
(www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/may/28/worlddispatch.drugsandalcohol/print; accessed online 10/17/2008), 28
May 2001.
255
For a full discussion of peak oil, see David Goodstein, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, New York: W. W.
Norton and Company, 2005.
256
Hakim Almasmari, “6th Sa’ada War on Verge of starting. Eight Houthis killed; Houthis take over Governmental
Complex,” Yemen Post (http://www.yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=499&MainCat=3;
accessed April 6, 2009), April 5, 2009.
257
Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, pg. 158.
258
Ibid, pg. 149.
259
Ibid, pg. 165.
75
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIALS
“Constitution of the Republic of Yemen, 1990.” (located at http://www.al‐
bab.com/yemen/gov/off2.htm; accessed online 12/29/2008), As amended on 29 September 1994
“Constitution of the Republic of Yemen, 1994.” (located at http://www.al‐
bab.com/yemen/gov/con94.htm; accessed online 12/29/2008), As amended on 29 September 1994
“The Aden Summit Agreement, 1989.” (located at http://www.al‐bab.com/yemen/unity/unif5.htm;
accessed online 12/29/2008), 30 November 1989.
“JMP Document on National and Political Reform.” (located at
http://www.newsyemen.net/en/view_news.asp?sub_no=4_2006_01_18_5767; accessed online
12/29/2008) 26 Nov. 2005.
“Joint Security Agreement.” (located at http://www.al‐bab.com/yemen/unity/unify.htm; accessed
online 12/29/2008), 4 May 1990.
“The Sana'a Accord.” (located at http://www.al‐bab.com/yemen/unity/unif6.htm; accessed online
12/29/2008), 22 April 1990.
The Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (website located at
http://www.scer.org.ye/english/indexe.htm).
BOOK LITERATURE
Al‐Yemeni, Ahmed A. Hezam. The Dynamic of Democratisation – Political Parties in Yemen. Bonn:
Friedrich‐Ebert‐Stiftung, 2003.
Al‐Suwaidi, Jamal S, ed. The Yemeni War of 1994. London: Saqi Books, 1995.
Badeeb, Saeed M. The Saudi‐Egyptian Conflict over North Yemen, 1962 – 1970. Boulder: Westview
Press, 1986.
Browers, Michaelle L. Democracy and Civil Society in Arab Political Thought. Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press, 2006.
Burrowes, Robert D. Historical Dictionary of Yemen. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1995.
Burrowes, Robert D. The Yemen Arab Republic. Boulder: Westview Press, 1987.
76
Carapico, Sheila. Civil Society in Yemen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Dresch, Paul. A History of Modern Yemen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Dresch, Paul. “The Tribal Factor in the Yemeni Crisis,” In The Yemeni War of 1994, ed. Jamal S. al‐
Suwaidi. London: Saqi Books, 1995.
Dunbar, Charles. “Internal Politics in Yemen: Recovery or Regression?” In The Yemeni War of 1994,
ed. Jamal S. al‐Suwaidi. London: Saqi Books, 1995.
Goodstein, David. Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2005.
Halliday, Fred. Arabia Without Sultans. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.
Ingrams, Harold. The Yemen: Imams Rulers and Revolutions. London: Camelot Press Ltd., 1963.
Khuri, Fuad. Imams and Emirs: State, Religion, and Sects in Islam. London: Saqi Books, 1990.
Kostiner, Joseph. Yemen: The Tortuous Quest for Unity. 1990 – 1994. London: Pinter, 1996.
Lawson, Fred H. “Intraregime Dynamics, Uncertainty, and the Persistence of Authoritarianism in the
Contemporary Arab World” In Debating Arab Authoritarianism, ed. Oliver Schlumberger. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2007.
Lust‐Okar, Ellen. Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Norton, Augustus Richard, ed. Civil Society in the Middle East, 2 volumes. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995‐6.
Phillips, Sarah. Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective. New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2008.
Pridham, B. R., ed. Contemporary Yemen: Politics and Historical Background. Beckenham, UK: Croom
Helm Ltd., 1984.
Schlumberger, Oliver. “Arab Authoritarianism: Debating the Dynamics and Durability of
Nondemocratic Regimes” In Debating Arab Authoritarianism, ed. Oliver Schlumberger. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2007.
Schwedler, Jillian. Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parities in Jordan and Yemen. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2006.
vom Bruck, Gabriele. Islam, Memory, and Morality in Yemen. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005.
vom Bruck, Gabriele. “Evacuating Memory in Postrevolutionary Yemen.” In Counter‐Narratives, eds.
Madawi Al‐Rasheed, Robert Vitalis, 229 ‐ 246. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.
77
Wedeen, Lisa. Peripheral Visions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Wedeen, Lisa. “Seeing Like a Citizen, Acting Like a State: Exemplary events in Unified Yemen.” In
Counter‐Narratives, eds. Madawi Al‐Rasheed, Robert Vitalis, 247 ‐ 285. New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2004.
Weir, Shelagh. A Tribal Order. Austin: University of Austin Press, 2007.
Wenner, Manfred W. Modern Yemen 1918‐1966. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1967.
Willis, John M. “Leaving Only Question‐Marks: Geographies of Rule in Modern Yemen.” In Counter‐
Narratives, eds. Madawi Al‐Rasheed, Robert Vitalis, 119 ‐ 149. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.
JOURNAL LITERATURE
Browers, Michaelle. “Origins and Architects of Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties.” International Journal
of Middle East Studies 39 (2007): 565‐586.
Burgat, François. “Yemen: On Which Side?” Le Monde Diplomatique, 9 April 2003
Burrowes, Robert D. “The Famous 40: North Yemen’s First Generation Modernists.” The Middle East
Journal, 59, No. 1 (Winter 2005): 81‐97.
Burrowes, Robert D. “Prelude to Unification: The Yemen Arab Republic, 1962 – 1990.” International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 23, No. 4 (November 1991): 483 – 506.
Burrowes, Robert D, Catherine M. Kaspar. “The Salih Regime and the Need for a Credible Opposition.”
The Middle East Journal, 61, No. 2 (Spring 2007): 263 – 280.
Carapico, Sheila. “From Ballot Box to Battlefield: The War of the Two ‘Alis.” Middle East Report, No.
190 (Sep. ‐ Oct. 1994): 24‐7.
Carapico, Sheila. “Elections and Mass Politics in Yemen.” Middle East Report, No. 185 (Dec. 1993): 2‐6.
Clark, Janine Astrid and Jillian Schwedler. “Who Opened the Window? Women's Activism in Islamist
Parties.” Comparative Politics, 35, No. 3 (April 2003): 293‐312.
Day, Stephen. “Updating Yemeni National Unity: Could Lingering Regional Divisions Bring Down the
Regime?” The Middle East Journal, 62, No. 3 (Summer 2008): 417‐439.
Dresch, Paul, Bernard Haykel. “Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and Tribesfolk in Yemen.”
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27, No. 4 (November 1995): 405‐431.
Dryzek, John S. “Political Inclusion and the Dynamics of Democratization.” The American Political
Science Review 90, No. 3 (September 1996): 475 – 487.
78
Dunbar, Charles. “The Unification of Yemen: Process, Politics, and Prospects.” The Middle East
Journal, 46, No. 3 (Summer 1992): 456‐476.
Glosemeyer, Iris, Don Reneau. “Local Conflict, Global Spin: An Uprising in the Yemeni Highlands.” The
Middle East Report, No. 232 (Autumn 2004): 44 – 46.
Gueyras, Jean, Philip Shehadi. “North Yemen Faces Embryonic Civil War.” MERIP Reports, No. 81 (Oct.
1979): 21 – 22.
Haliday, Fred. “North Yemen Today.” MERIP Reports, No. 130 (Feb. 1985): 3 – 9.
Langohr, Vickie. “Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics: Egypt and Liberalizing Arab Regimes.”
Comparative Politics 36, No. 2 (January 2004): 181 – 204.
Longley, April. “The High Water Mark of Islamist Politics? The Case of Yemen.” The Middle East
Journal, 61, No. 2 (Spring 2007): 240‐260.
Lust‐Okar, Ellen. “Divided they Rule: The Management and Manipulation of Political Opposition.”
Comparative Politics, 36, No. 2 (January 2004): 159 ‐ 179.
Pripstein Posusney, Marsha. “Enduring Authoritarianism: Middle East Lessons for Comparative
Theory.” Comparative Politics 36, No. 2 (January 2004): 127 – 138.
Schwedler, Jillian. “The Paradox of Democracy? Islamist Participation in Elections.” Middle East Report
209 (Winter 1998): 25 – 29, 41.
Schwedler, Jillian. “Yemen’s Aborted Opening.” Journal of Democracy, 13, No. 4 (October 2002): 48‐
55.
Wedeen, Lisa. “The Politics of Deliberation: Qat Chews as Public Spheres in Yemen.” Public Culture,
19, No. 1 (2007): 59‐84.
Weir, Shelagh. “A Clash of Fundamentalisms: Wahhabism in Yemen.” Middle East Report, No. 204
(July ‐ September 1997): 22‐23, 26.
Wickham, Carrie. “The Problem with Coercive Democratization: The Islamist Response to the U.S.
Democracy Reform Initiative.” The Muslim World Journal of Human Rights, 1, No. 1 (2004).
Wickham, Carrie. “The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat
Party.” Comparative Politics, 36, No. 2 (Jan. 2004): 205‐28.
WEB LITERATURE
Carapico, Sheila. “How Yemen’s Ruling Party Secured an Electoral Landslide.” Middle East Report
Online (www.merip.org/mero/mero051603.html; accessed online 10/02/2008), 16 May 2003.
79
Carapico, Sheila, Lisa Wedeen, Anna Wuerth. “The Death and Life of Jarallah Omar.” Middle East
Report Online (www.merip.org/mero/mero123102.html), 31 Dec. 2002.
Fakir, Intissar. “Economic and Regional Challenges.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ‐
Arab Reform Bulletin (www.CarnegieEndowment.org), July/August 2008.
Johnsen, Gregory D. “Electoral Game of Chicken” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ‐ Arab
Reform Bulletin (www.CarnegieEndowment.org), February 2009.
Johnsen, Gregory D. “Profile of Sheikh Abd al‐Majid al‐Zindani.” The Jamestown Foundation Terrorism
Monitor (www.jamestown.org), Volume IV, Issue 7: 6 April 2006.
Johnsen, Gregory D. “Salih’s Road to Reelection.” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero011306.html), 13 Jan. 2006.
Johnsen, Gregory D. “The Election Yemen Was Supposed to Have.” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero100306.html; accessed online 10/02/2008), 03 Oct. 2006.
Johnsen, Gregory D. “The Resiliency of Yemen’s Aden‐Abyan Islamic Army.” The Jamestown
Foundation Terrorism Monitor (www.jamestown.org), Volume IV, Issue 14: 13 July 2006.
Johnsen, Gregory D. and Christopher Boucek. “The Well Runs Dry.” Foreign Policy
(http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4717; accessed March 2, 2009), February
2009.
Johnsen, Gregory D. “Yemen’s Al‐Imam University: A Pipeline for Fundamentalists?” The Jamestown
Foundation Terrorism Monitor (www.jamestown.org), Volume IV, Issue 22: 16 Nov. 2006.
Katz, Mark N. “US – Yemen Relations and the War on Terror: A Portrait of Yemeni President Ali
Abdullah Salih.” The Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor (www.jamestown.org), Volume II, Issue
7: 8 April 2004.
McGregor, Andrew. “Prosecuting Terror: Yemen’s War on Islamist Militancy.” The Jamestown
Foundation Terrorism Monitor (www.jamestown.org), Volume IV, Issue 9: 4 May 2006.
Phillips, Sarah. “Cracks in the Yemeni System.” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero072805.html; accessed online 10/02/2008), 28 July 2005.
Phillips, Sarah. “Foreboding About the Future in Yemen.” Middle East Report Online
(www.merip.org/mero/mero040306.html; accessed online 10/02/2008), 03 Apr. 2006.
Pripstein‐Posusney, Marsha. “Behind the Ballot Box: Electoral Engineering in the Arab World.” Middle
East Report (http://www.merip.org/mer/mer209/marsha.htm), 209, (Winter 1998).
80
Sharp, Jeremy M. “US Policy and Yemen: Balancing Realism and Reform on the Arab Periphery.”
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ‐ Arab Reform Bulletin (www.CarnegieEndowment.org),
4, No. 8, October 2006.
Sharp, Jeremy M. “Where is the Stability Tipping Point?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
‐ Arab Reform Bulletin (www.CarnegieEndowment.org), July/August 2008.
Watkins, Eric. “Landscape of Shifting Alliances.” The Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor
(www.jamestown.org), Volume II, Issue 7: 8 April 2004.
Winer, Jonathan. “Yemen’s Enduring Challenges.” The Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor
(www.jamestown.org), Volume II, Issue 7: 8 April 2004.
WEB LOGS
Novak, Jane. “Armies of Liberation.” http://armiesofliberation.com
POLICY PAPERS & REPORTS
“Economic Growth in the Republic of Yemen.” World Bank, World Bank Publications, 2002.
European Union Election Observation Mission, “Yemen 2006: Final Report.”
Gerner, Franz and Silvana Tordo. “Republic of Yemen: A Natural Gas Incentive Framework,” World
Bank, ESMAP, Formal Report 327/07, 2008.
Hill, Ginny. “Yemen: Fear of Failure.” Chatham House, Briefing Paper MEP BP 08/03, November 2008.
Library of Congress – Federal Research Division. “Country Profile: Yemen.”
(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Yemen.pdf; accessed 04/04/2008) December 2006.
Longley, April and Abdul Ghani al‐Iryani. “Fighting Brushfires with Batons: An Analysis of the Political
Crisis in South Yemen.” The Middle East Institute, Policy Brief No. 7, February 2008.
MENA DEVELOPMENT REPORT: “Making the Most of Scarcity: Accountability for Better Water
Management Results in the Middle East and North Africa.” The World Bank, Pub 41113, 2007.
European Union Election Observation Mission: Republic of Yemen, “Presidential and Local Elections –
20 September 2006, Preliminary Statement,” Sana’a, 21 September 2006.
National Democratic Institute, “Agreement Between the GPC and JMP,” June 18, 2006.
81
National Democratic Institute, “Report on the 2006 Presidential and Local Elections in the Republic of
Yemen.”
National Democratic Institute, “Yemen 2006 Voter Registration Update,” Monitoring Report.
Ottaway, Marina and Amr Hamzawy. “Fighting on Two Fronts.” Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, Middle East Program, paper 85, May 2007.
Phillips, Sarah. “Evaluating Political Reform in Yemen.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Democracy and Rule of Law Program, paper 80, February 2007.
Schwedler, Jillian. “Islam, Democracy, and the Yemeni State.” Presented to the Center for the Study of
Islam and Democracy Second Annual Conference, Islam, Democracy and the Secularist State in the
Post‐modern Era, April 7, 2001.
“Yemen: Qat Cultivation Threatening Water Resources, Specialists Warn.” IRIN: the humanitarian
news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=75184; accessed online 10/19/2008).
“Yemen Economic Update, Summer 2008.” World Bank Group, Sana’a Office.
NEWSPAPERS
almotamar.net/en/
alsahwa‐yemen.net/english.asp
International Herald Tribune
LA Times
newsyemen.net/en/
New York Times
sabanews.net/en/
yemenonline.info
Yemen Observer
Yemen Post
Yemen Times
82
Research Paper Proposal
Boston University
Master of Arts in International Relations Candidate:
Daniel T. Mahoney III
Advisor: Professor Charles Dunbar
January 30, 2009
The Yemeni Gathering for Reform (Islah) Party: Harbinger of Democracy?
(Working Title)
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: TO ASCERTAIN WHETHER ISLAH IS BECOMING A TRUE OPPOSITION PARTY.
From the unification of Yemen in 1990, Islah (at‐tajammu al‐yemeni lil‐islah) has played an important
role in deciding the country’s political direction. A political party born of Yemen’s unification – and
then comprised of an alliance of leading conservative tribal personalities, Islamists, and businessmen1 –
the last 19 years have seen the dramatic change of Islah as it has moved from a position of close
alliance with the Salih regime previous to the 1994 civil war, to one of seemingly strong opposition.
Since the 1994 civil war President Ali Abdullah Salih has sought to marginalize the Islah party, quite
possibly out of a desire to return to the pre‐1990 days when political parties were absent. The
outcome was disaffection within the party that led many of its leaders to engage ever more closely
with the opposition, leading to a moderation in their ideology.2 And with the increasing exclusion of
Sheikh Abdullah bin Hussein al‐Ahmar from the informal (patronage) system as a result of his rising
disagreement with Salih, some scholars believe the party had to reach out to the other opposition
parties for ‘protection.’ This reaching out yielded ascendance to the moderate Muslim Brothers within
Islah,3 allowing them to commit their party to the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) opposition while
abandoning the party’s role as ‘loyal opposition.’
Today, there is increasing coordination between the six parties that comprise the opposition JMP;
reaching new found heights in their unified clash with the ruling GPC this past summer over the
composition of the Supreme Council for Elections and Referendum (SCER) as well as over how elections
are run and proper voter registration is achieved. These are battles the JMP has seemingly lost, but
the war is far from over.
The aim of this paper will be to address three interconnected questions regarding Islah: will the party
be able to maintain its split with the Salih regime and his GPC, will this break have the effect of
breaking the authoritarian rule of Salih’s regime and, if so, will the outcome be the dawn of real
political pluralism in Yemen?
1
Charles Dunbar, “The Unification of Yemen: Process, Politics, and Prospects,” The Middle East Journal, 46, no. 3 (Summer
1992): pg. 473.
2
Jillian Schwedler, “Yemen’s Aborted Opening,” Journal of Democracy, 13, no. 4 (October 2002): pg. 54.
3
Sarah Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008, pg. 165.
83
RESEARCH METHODS:
This research paper will examine the relevant literature on Islah in order to construct a narrative that
traces Islah’s evolution from its inception to the present. The examination will be comprised of reports
from the World Bank, Jamestown Foundation and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as
well as of scholarly articles, essays and monographs that address Islah and the JMP. Where necessary,
English translations of Yemeni legal documents will also be consulted. As to events of the past year,
the author will rely on the reportage of Yemeni periodicals in translation such as the Yemen Times,
Yemen Observer and Yemen Post.
In addition, this paper will also seek to interview experts in the field in regards to conclusions drawn
about Islah’s trajectory. To that end, the author will work closely with his advisor – a former US
ambassador to Yemen – as well as seek clarification where needed throughout the paper through
email consultation with leading experts in the field, including the recently named GPC interlocutor to
the JMP and former Foreign Minister and Prime Minister of Yemen, Dr. Abdul Kareem Al‐Eryani.
WORKING OUTLINE:
I. Introduction
9 Brief historical contextualization
9 Political Paradigms
9 Presentation of the research questions
9 Outline of the paper plan
II. Chapter One: The Origins of Islah, its Role as Loyal Opposition, and its Movement Towards
True Opposition
9 Formation at unification as a political party representing the conservative interests of
the General Popular Congress (GPC)
9 Islahi animosity towards the South’s former ruling party, the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP)
9 Success in the 1993 parliamentary elections
9 The Yemeni Civil War of 1994
9 Islah disaffection with the GPC and Salih’s regime
9 1997 Parliamentary Elections
9 1999: the first Presidential Elections
9 Islah joins the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP)
9 The 2003 Parliamentary Elections
9 Conclusions
84
III. Chapter Two: What is the Islah Party Today?
9 2005: Islah goes all‐in with the JMP
• Sheikh Abdullah and President Salih have a political disagreement with serious
implications
• The Muslim Brotherhood wing of Islah cements Islah’s relationship with the JMP
9 The 2006 Presidential Elections
9 The current state of the JMP
9 The parliamentary impasse
9 The Supreme Council for Elections and Referendum (SCER) and upcoming elections
9 Conclusions
IV. Chapter Three: The Perennial Chaos that is Yemen
9 A survey of political crises contributing to the instability of the Salih Regime
• The economic crisis in Yemen
• The ecological crisis in Yemen
• War in Saadah
• Upheaval in the South
• Yemen as a haven for Islamic radicals
9 The JMP role in mitigating (or stoking) the aforementioned crises
9 Conclusions
V. Conclusion
9 Review of material presented.
9 Analysis of the paper’s aims.
• Will Islah maintain its split with the GPC?
• Will maintenance of the split break the authoritarian rule of Salih’s regime?
• Will a potential defeat of the Salih regime give birth to more chaos, or political
pluralism?
9 Implications of drawn conclusions
9 Looking into the future
85