Emergency Government Needed [Archives:2001/15/Focus]

Hassan al-Zaidi
Yemen Times
When we agree that we suffer from an economic crisis, we do believe that we should channel our efforts to address the situation and not busy ourselves with questions about the identity of the person who will head the government.
As Mr. Ba Jamal was authorized to form the new government, it triggered much controversy regarding the local and international issues which led the President take the step of firing Dr. Iryani. Instead we should study the causes of the crisis.
It is time we considered the priorities the new government has to deal with, regardless of whether the preachers of radical change will be up to their word or whether the new government will just be a repetition of faces, or whether there will be a turning point in the lives of the Yemenis.
When we talk about a change, we do not ask for changing the regulations of the regime, its institutions or leadership. We rather call for changing the old heritage and techniques which have resulted in the economic and social crisis. This is actually a dangerous stage posing many economic challenges which may lead to “the hungry revolution” , unless all the corrupt officials are removed from high positions. .
Without the radical change, as the late Dr. Abdulaziz al-Saqqaf said, “it is impossible to establish a government that eradicates corruption and the corrupt, wherever they are, to make Yemen the Arabia felix again.” The essence of radical change is unquestionably in the policies, and not in faces, of administrative techniques. It is and not in the people taking over, in Ministers’ authorities and not in their names, in the authorities of the PM and his efficiency and not in his party, tribe or his belongings.
If the new government will not heed the economic, security, administrative and financial challenges and eradicate corruption from the state’s institutions and be a copy of its former government, what is the use of forming it! Nothing is better than to have an emergency government headed by the president, formed of national experts, partisan and non-partisan specialists and who, under the President’s leadership, will be able to save the country from its current crisis. He is the only one who can help these figures and enable them to overcomes the hurdles which faced the former government.
The people have borne a lot of setbacks by governments, have suffered from the repetition of faces and lack of scientific policies to retrieve their ever deteriorating situation. If these are heeded, the people will remain clung to a far-fetched hope of starting with the formation of a new government with an eye-catching program. However, this program has no real meaning, leading to the deterioration of the situation beyond any further control. Then “the hungry revolution” will break out.

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