In an Extraordinary Meeting Islahs PD Authorized to Take Decision Over Elections & Referendum [Archives:2001/02/Front Page]

After a heated debate and controversy over participation in the local councils elections and referendum on constitutional amendments to be held in Feb. 20, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah) held an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday to discuss whether to take part in the two activities or not. Islah has been demanding, since the 1997 parliamentary elections, the correction of the names of the voters as there are over 300,000 phantom names.
The participants in the meeting have authorized the Political Department (PD) in the party to take the decision regarding participation.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh also attended the meeting but before his arrival the attendants were arguing and debating the question of participation. Most of them were in favor of boycotting but this feeling was put down as soon as the president entered the hall of the meeting.
He addressed the meeting confirming the strategic coalition relationship between his party, PGC and Islah and that they can never fall apart. He said: We were altogether under the umbrella of the PGC before 1990.
Since then, political pluralism was adopted as a system for the country according to the constitution and law. But this does not mean separation between PGC and other parties including Islah.
We are all exercising this democratic experience with full sense of responsibility instead of violence. he added. The president also said that he received many complaints from Islah and other parties regarding voters lists. He confirmed that the mistakes should be corrected and the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC) has corrected around 130,000 repeated names of voters.
The President stated that the government was not ready to hold the local elections and the main concern was to conduct the referendum and local elections in the main cities of governorates. But when it was found that the referendum would cost YR 3 billion and 900 million, it was decided to hold the two events simultaneously, adding that it would be an experience for two years which would give SEC a chance to correct voters names.
Shiekh Abdullah Bin Husein Al-Ahmer, president of Islah appreciated Salehs presence as a sign of sponsoring democracy at the level of parties. He also pointed out that SEC is short of time otherwise it would have made good progress in correcting the voters names adding that this first experience of local elections proved that many technical mistakes in the voters lists of names have to be reconsidered.
Reliable sources in Islah told Yemen Times that by the end of the meeting, Mohammed Abdullah Al-Yadomi, Islahs General Secretary suggested that the attendants should vote on the partys participation in the elections and referendum. However, Sheikh Abdulmajeed aL-Zindani, Chairman of Islahs Shoura Council, asserted that they should not boycott whether they win or not, adding that they authorize the Political Department to take the decision of participation. The suggestion of Zindani might indicate that negotiations between PGC and Islah are going on to ensure high participation percentage in the two events if we take into account that the low percentage of participation in the Presidential elections in September 1999 was referred to some of Islah members boycotting these elections.
Political observers view presidents presence in Islahs meeting a hit to the conservative group which was exercising pressure inside the party to boycott elections and referendum, a western tradition that does not go along with Islamic shoura. However, the visit was a great support to the liberal and radical group inside Islah which tries to participate effectively in the political changes Yemen is going through since 1990 as a major political party in the country.

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