Al-Wahdawi [Archives:2006/988/Press Review]
3 Oct. 2006
Main headlines
– NUO secretary general says September revolution represented salvation from despotism
– Killing of Rabie and Dailami came after return of FM from Washington
– Organization branch in Taiz demands sending the killer of martyr Shamsan to court holds the interior and the SCER responsible for what happened
– British prisons places for extremism promotion
– Saudi-Yemeni differences behind non-granting of visas to more than 35 thousand Yemenis
– Delay in announcing results of local elections for not completion of final statements
– A call for opening the file of torture in Yemeni prisons
Writer Ahmed Saeed says in his article surely there is a political vivacity that accompanied the elections held in the country lately and the opposition has contributed to them with a major role through its serious participation in this constitutional right and its acceptance of competing for the first post in the state by presenting the patriotic figure the engineer Faisal bi Shamlan as candidate for the Joint Meeting Parties opposition alliance.
All are aware that elections of the last month, regardless of shortcomings and failures that helped domination of the ruling party, are considered a step on the right path by breaking taboos that give a halo of sacredness to the post of the president of the republic and managed to subject that post to competition.
Surely, those elections have resulted in tragic events the world has observed and reached the extent of targeting lives of citizens and crushing the will of electors by allurement and terrorization. The elections revealed that the competition was between the state potentials and the opposition rather than between the ruling party and the JMP. In my view they revealed practices showing ugliness of the ruling party's clinging to power and using whatever violates the law and the constitution to attain that end. the experiment of 20 September elections needs more peaceful struggle and sacrifice because it cannot be granted by political speech but by more work for increasing consciousness of the importance of squeezing out the rights and preserving them. it is not true that a real and comprehensive change has taken place in Yemen in the wake of elections but it is sure that the wheel of democracy is set to motion and it is difficult to stop it and the journey before it is composed of stages that can be more difficult and less trivial of what happened in the presidential elections. Consequently what happened is not the end of the journey and it is sure as swell that the experiment is in need of objective evaluation by the JMP and to think of it with a sense of responsibility.
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[archive-e:988-v:14-y:2006-d:2006-10-09-p:press]
