On Yemen Becoming a True Democracy [Archives:2008/1184/Opinion]

Surely anyone who expected that Yemen would be entering the club of democratic nations, in which the people enjoyed real democracy, in law and in practice, by merely having the signatures of the two Yemeni Presidents Ali Abdulla Saleh and Ali Salem Al-Beidh on the unification Agreement of 1989 was far from being realistic.

But on the whole, one great aspect that materialized out of this was that the Yemenis, who fervently saw in this a great opportunity to advance democratic practice took the inclusion of democracy as part of the agreement for the unification of Yemen as something worth upholding to the extent that they would be willing to challenge the Government in truly giving vitality to this concept that was introduced by the unification agreement.

As the offspring of two different forms of totalitarianism, the government of the united Yemen had its own interpretations of what “democracy”” actually means. However