The president’s campaign [Archives:2006/978/Opinion]
By: Mohammed Al-Ghubari
Since the previous presidential elections the main concern of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is to avoid personal defamation and offence. Before the initiation of the presidential race, this concern was present in the process of talking about rivalry.
What is issued by the president is one thing and what is published in his party's media is something else and it has gone beyond personal criticism to accusation and use of calling names. What has been mentioned in one of online sites funded by the ruling party was that the family of Bin Shamlan has repudiated him for nominating himself for the presidential elections and this reveals the big difference between words and deeds.
The same thing can be found in al-Mithaq newspaper and 22 May newspaper. Moreover, the General People's Congress has in a short time created four electronic websites, one of them represented an excess to moral right of colleague Nabil al-Soufi, owner of News Yemen website. It has been clear that the goal of founding these sites is to assail the opposition candidate and to downplay his career and work.
When media of the ruling party indulge in accusing others with lies and corruption, those in charge of the media do not know their adversaries have thousands of flaws and realities regarding given promises and have not been fulfilled throughout the past years. They possess declared acknowledgements from the head of the state and senior officials on the spread of corruption and absence of the state prestige. Those in charge of the president's media campaign and those accusing the opposition candidate by telling lies would help gain support of voters or expand the base of his popularity.
The expansion of poverty, unemployment and seizure of most properties by a group of persons, deterioration of education and health services has increased the number of the resentful people in Yemen. Reports by the World Bank, the International Transparency and the people coexistence with the two men will change the equation.
The question is how could a family unable to earn it daily food can support a candidate spending billions to put his large pictures in the streets and squares or a sick person who cannot buy medicine give his support while he sees the spending on posters in the streets and distributed to houses and shops and how can such a candidate win the support of the hungry who see luxurious cars carrying pictures of the candidate to towns and villages throughout the country?
I am quite certain the people managing the campaign of the GPC candidate are ignorant of many of the rules of their job. How can we ask the citizen to chant for the president while we know the size of the social disaster he has caused and how to address a citizen who knows him as ruler for 28 years and talk to him about the future and a new Yemen?
The other astonishing point those claiming objectivity in their writings then consider the age of the candidates. We are an oriental society built on fatherhood and the older the human becomes the more mature and reasonable they will be in making decisions. The president himself has exceeded the age of 60 and the African leader Nelson Mandela ruled his country when he was 74.
In our reality the people are in need of president sharing the suffering of daily life and not spend millions for buying houses or expensive sport tools to practice his hobby while our children do not have playgrounds and playing in the alleys. The people here look for bread. As for indulgence in following up the latest fashions and tools of fitness and beauty, they do not care for.
Mohammed Al-Ghubari is a Yemeni journalist. He is the correspondent of UAE Al-Baian Newspaper.
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[archive-e:978-v:14-y:2006-d:2006-08-04-p:opinion]
