Al-Thawry [Archives:2003/636/Press Review]

Main headlines:
– Parliament inaugurates its session with a first constitutional violation
– Explosion at the appeal court in Ibb
– In a letter to the president, a Hadda village inhabitants: Put-up intentions to displace the wretched people
– Military control of remaining private and public property in Aden
– Khatami visits Yemen.
Mr Rashad Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim writes an article, saying there is no way for change in the Arab and Islamic societies unless there is a strong conviction with the members of the society and it unites in on front to be a strong power working for a change. There is no way for that unless the political and mass organization forces form a strong opposition making authorities convinced in the necessity of change.
As opposition parties in Yemen have reached to a conviction that change could not be attained but on condition that the opposition stands abreast against authority suppression, those parties have sought to form the Joint Meeting Grouping. But this conclusion reached by the political opposition JMP leadership has not been enhanced with the citizen and the partisan bases of each party because leaderships of the parties have not yet consolidated that conviction in order to carry it to the members. That situation has convicted many that it does not met the masses aspirations and demonstrated the JMP as weak in the eyes of the authority and the citizen regardless of any violations or practices by the authority. Had the citizen acquired a conviction that the opposition has taken a unified stand he would not have sided with the ruling party. He could have known that his interest and that of his society dictates to stand by the JMP and then the difference in votes between the JMP and the GPC very big and the latter could not be able to forge the results in its favour because the citizen would disclose that. In such a case the citizen would have an insistence on standing and defending his interests represented by the opposition. The JMP has stopped at the point of agreement among the leaderships on distributing among themselves the constituencies alone.

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