With the approach of the final countdown for the end of the transitional phase in Yemen and the date of the new parliamentary elections, due before the end of next November, mixed, not to say confused, signals are emerging from Yemen.<\/p>\n
Recent developments show an ease of tension and an amelioration of relations between Yemen and it\u2019s neighbours. On October 1st, was formally ratified in Sanaa the much-awaited agreement on the delimitation of borders\u2019 between the Yemeni Republic and the Sultanate of Oman. At the same time, in Riyadh, the first round of talks had begun between delegations of Saudi and Yemeni \u2018experts\u2019 to discuss the more delicate and difficult border dispute between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Whatever the outcome of these negociations, and the time needed to bring them to bear fruit, the mere fact that they have taken place is a positive sign in itself. In fact, both countries had an interest in getting them started. The Saudis were keen to ratify the Ta\u00eff agreement, due for renewal in November, which the Yemenis had refused to reiterate unless all the border disputes between the two countries are put on the agenda (the said agreement by virtue of which the Yemen recognizes Saudi control over the Yemeni provinces of `Assir and Najran occupied by Saudi forces in 1934, is automatically renewable every twenty years unless one of the parties notifies its opposition to it). The Yemenis, on their part, needed to get the talks going at least in order to reassure foreign oil companies holding concessions in the border regions who have recently been formaly warned by the Saudis that they were prospecting for oil inside Saudi, or at best, \u2018disputed territory\u2019. For one, British Petroleum had stopped its operations after receiving the Saudi note.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the cycle of violence is continuing in Sanaa and has taken a new turn as the explosions, during the last weeks, were directed at personalities belonging to the General People\u2019s Congress (GPC) of President `Ali `Abdallah Salih, including the latter\u2019s own brother. Many observers saw in this an additional proof of foreign-inspired acts of sabotage. The latest acts of violence being typical covert tricks designed to imply that they were in retaliation by the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) against previous attempts to be imputed to the GPC.<\/p>\n
The covert trick did not seem to have worked. But the political debate in the country is as heated and nervous as can be. To begin with, a polemic raged around a proposed reform of the education system violently opposed by both the Islamists and the Yemeni Rally for Reform (YRR) of Shaykh `Abdallah Bin Husayn al-Ahmar, but also by parliamentarians belonging to the General People\u2019s Congress (GPC) of President `Ali `Abdallah Salih. It was even alleged that the office of the President had exerted pressure to postpone the passing of the law. But Parliament finally voted a more secular, education law, which severely curtailed the influence and privileges previously enjoyed by the religious authorities and institutions in educational matters, programmes and the workings of the Ministry of Education. A few days after the law was passed, a rocket attak against the home of the speaker of the parliament, Yasseen Sa\u00efd Numan, one of the leaders of the YSP, nearly cost him and members of his family their lives. But that was not all. Shaykh al-Ahmar\u2019s counter-attacked against the \u201csecularists\u201d, as he called them. He advocated the return to the National Charter, in application in north Yemen before unity, that stipulated that legislation be solely based on the Islamic Shari`a. That amounted to a return to square one, to the polemic on the constitution of the new unified republic, approved by popular plebiscite in May 1991, which had struck a balance between the Shari`a and \u201cpeople\u2019s sovereignty\u201d as the two main sources of legislation.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, relations between the GPC and the YSP have considerably deteriorated of late. A fact dramatised by the refusal of YSP\u2019s general secretary and vice-president of the Presidential Council, `Ali Salim al-Beedh, to show up at the official festivities marking the thirtieth anniversary of the Yemeni Republic of September 26th, 1962. Al-Beedh, entrenched in his native Hadramut and in Aden for the last two months, in objection to the laxity with which security forces were treating terrorism, the erosion of power-sharing, the marginalisation of the Presidential Council (composed of five members, three from the North and two from the South). However, the announcement by President Salih, in his speech of September 26th, that there will be \u201cno victor nor vanquished\u201d in the elections, designed to appease and reassure the YSP, had led the way to a new five-point agreement by the two parties to end their press campaigns, reactivate the cabinet and convene a plenum of the Presidential Coucil to discuss security issues. Whether this will effectively lead to calming down the polemics and lead them into more peaceful channels remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
What is at really at stake in the Yemen is the nature of the political regime of the unified state. Will it be a regime that combines the best of both regimes that formed the united republic, or will it tumble back to a one-man regime and a one-party rule with the concomitant strong security apparatus and marginalized parliament. A lot will depend on the capacity of the regime itself to organize free elections, i.e., free from government pressures and from the influence of money where all parties and shades of opinion can peacefully compete to win the electorate\u2019s votes.<\/p>\n
The future of Yemen\u2019s promising experience in unity and democracy will largely depend on this. The wrong choices wil jeopardize not only an original experience in pluralism and democracy but unity itself.<\/p>\n
Insert:<\/p>\n
The Yemeni Socialist Party is much more than the representative of the ex-regime in Aden which, still commands the allegiance of its armed forces. It is a popular force in its own right with branches all over the country, thousands of experience cadres and a democratic, secular and socially-oriented platform. Its membership is estimated at no less than a hundred thousands, more than three quarters of which are in the north. The YSP is the main political party of the modern forces of society, influential in the trade and professional unions and the cities, but also commanding a sizeable base in the countryside, especially in the agricultural regions of Ibb and Ta`iz, not to speak of it being the largest political expression of the Shafe`i majority of the population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the approach of the final countdown for the end of the transitional phase in Yemen and the date of the new parliamentary elections, due before the end of next November, mixed, not to say confused, signals are emerging from Yemen. Recent developments show an ease of tension and an amelioration of relations between Yemen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[],"content_type":[523],"themes":[316,314],"country":[2816,339],"language":[66],"archive_type":[113],"archive_author":[246],"media_type":[],"keywords":[570,643,819,1590,1009,1609,1302,1304,1382,1396,1606,1447,1483,1553],"ft_dossier":[],"ft_categories":[],"published_in":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","content_type-articles-en","themes-international-relations-en","themes-politics-en","country-saudi-arabia-en","country-yemen-en","language-english","archive_type-by-ft-en","archive_author-fawwaz-traboulsi-en","keywords-1990s-middle-east-en","keywords-arab-nationalism-en","keywords-democracy-en","keywords-dhofar-en","keywords-islamism-en","keywords-oil-en","keywords-political-transition-en","keywords-political-violence-en","keywords-saudi-arabia-kw-en","keywords-sectarianism-en","keywords-socialism-en","keywords-south-yemen-en","keywords-taif-agreement-en","keywords-yemen-kw-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"themes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/themes?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"archive_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive_type?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"archive_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive_author?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keywords?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"ft_dossier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ft_dossier?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"ft_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ft_categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"published_in","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/published_in?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}