Ruling party blames opposition for illegal fund-raising [Archives:2006/945/Front Page]
Adel Al-Khawlani
SANA'A, May 9 ) The General People Congress (GPC) Tuesday charged opposition parties with illegal fund-raising for the upcoming elections under the pretext of supporting Palestinian Authority led by Hamas.
“Leading women affiliating to the Islamist Islah Party and other opposition organizations usually meet other females at schools, hospitals and other places and ask them for money under the cover of supporting Hamas, however, information was leaked that the funds will go to opposition presidential and local candidates in the upcoming polls,” a GPC activist said on condition of anonymity.
Almotamar net of the ruling party reported Monday that Women's Sector of the strongest opposition Islah Party launched a fund-raising campaign in female circles to collect money for the party's electoral campaign.
The party's news source quoted well-informed sources as saying the campaign was started in the provinces of Taiz, Aden and Hodeida as a first step by female activists who claimed that the money was aimed at supporting the Hamas-led Palestinian government, which has seen a cessation of international aids.
The ruling party released statements accusing Islah, one of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), of using women activists only to vote for its candidates, persuade other women to support opposition or collect finance for the same party that allows women to vote but not to take part in elections as candidates. The statements outraged Islah party leaders and activists who accused the ruling party and the regime of adopting wrong policies that lead the country to an unprecedented catastrophe. The Islah party held the regime and the ruling party accountable for the country's ailing economy and bad living standards of people. According to Islah leaders, most of the government's spending goes to the unknown and the government has never fulfilled its promises to improve infrastructure such as electricity, where inhabitants of main cities live for hours with the power off. They said the government's unwise policies and absence of monitoring help corrupt officials to be richer at the expense of ordinary citizens whose living standards goes from bad to worse.
Charges which opposition attributes to government's wrong policies enraged President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who warned against inflaming sentiments over the upcoming presidential elections, in which he has said he will not run.
Saleh lashed out at opposition parties, expressing regret that “certain groups are seeking to exacerbate tensions in political circles prior to election fever, and they all have to assume their responsibilities and bear the consequences of their acts.” Local newspapers Tuesday quoted Saleh as saying, during a tour of Yemeni provinces, “political forces in the country should coexist and deal with each other judicially to avoid adding more oil on fire.”
The exchange of accusations between the ruling party and opposition coincides with a state of confusion on the Yemeni political scene as the September election date draws nearer. The ruling party charged that “the campaign succeeded so far in collecting big amounts of money in addition to precious jewelry donated by Yemeni women under the guise of supporting Hamas Government.
The fund-raising coincided with another type of campaign: that of mosque preachers to mobilize support for the opposition party, “which reached in some instances the point of provoking the people against the GPC in addition to collecting funds under the cover of supporting Hamas,” reliable sources said.
Yemeni government last month banned private fund-raising campaigns, restricting them within the framework of the administration in order to organize the process of collecting donations for the Palestinian people through four accounts.
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