The Yemeni national elections ofApril 27, 1993 were the Arabian Peninsula's first genuine experimentwith popular participation in multiparty electoral contest.International observers and press correspondents pronounced Yemen'spolling for 301 constituency-based seats in the Chamber of Deputies,involving about three-quarters of some 2.7 million registered votersand over 3700 candidates, "free and fair," although Yemeni punditsand parties exercised their freedom to criticize the process. Thecontest seemed to combine uniquely Yemeni tribal elements withIndian-style ruling party stability, Italianesque partisanmaneuvering, and Chicagoan machine politics. Throughout, there wasboth competition and bargaining at local and national levels betweenand among President 'Ali 'Abd Allah Salih's General People's Congress(GPC), the co-ruling Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), the Islamic-tribalcoalition known as the Islah Party, several pan-Arab parties,numerous local groupings, and independent candidates over the shapeof the new ruling coalition. When the preliminary results werereleased May 1, Congress had won 122 seats, Islah came in second with62, the YSP took 57, independents had 46, the Ba'th won 7, threeNasiri parties each gained one seat, the religious-aristocratical-Huq party had two, and two remained to be decided.
The Yemenis faced a gargantuantask in constructing an electoral system from scratch. A lack oftimely preparation for orderly polling forced postponement beyond theoriginally scheduled date of November, 1992. Thereafter, andespecially after inflation-induced demonstrations in the main citiesin December, 1992, the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC), headed by'Abd al-Karim al-'Arashi, worked diligently to put the process inplace. In the end, most but not all of the technical aspects workedsmoothly. The SEC drew the lines for 301 voting districts, each withabout 47,000 population, and established processes for voter andcandidate registration, rules for the 10-day pre-election campaignperiod, and monitoring, voting, and counting procedures. At eachpolling station three election officials were observed by candidates'representatives as they sealed empty ballot boxes, counted blankballots, and reviewed registration lists. Despite a good deal ofpushing and shoving in some rural constituencies, armed guardsallowed voters to enter one by one to present a registration card,have it verified, receive a ballot, write the candidate's name,deposit the ballot in the box, and have their fingers marked withindelible ink. Illiterate voters, a sizable fraction of theelectorate, were entitled to choose a confidant to write acandidate's name as a station official looked on, but criticsconsider this a violation of the constitutional right to a secretballot. When stations closed, ballot boxes in each constituency werecollected to a central place &emdash; often selected for theavailability of an electrical generator &emdash; where counting tookplace in front of representatives of each party running in thedistrict.
International election monitors,journalists, and observers were uniformly impressed. Among them were:James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute who reminded Yemeniaudiences of the long road to universal suffrage and free electionsin the US; Ahmad Bahabib of the American-Yemeni FriendshipAssociation who could scarcely contain his enthusiasm; MacGuireGibson of AIYS who found the process more open and exciting than theUS presidential campaign last fall; and Deputy Assistant Secretary ofState David Mack who said he was instructed to congratulate Yemenipeople and government and to express US encouragement and support forthe process. The international press, represented by Nora Bustani ofthe Washington Post, Dean Fisher of Time, and theEnglish and Arabic services of Voice of America and the BBC, Japanesenewspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue ZürcherZeitung, and the Financial Times, all gave positivecoverage. A pair of Dutch observers who separately visited at leastten stations in the Hodeida and Ta'izz-Ibb regions, respectively,said they were "moved" by the enthusiasm of voters and the dedicationof monitors, especially female station monitors who protected "their"ballot boxes and stayed up all night to see the votes counted. Eventhe Jerusalem Post called the Yemeni elections a step toward MiddleEast peace.
But the process was not withoutincident, as a few individuals resorted to bribery, chicanery, andforce to influence the outcome. One polling station official inJahana, southeast of Sanaa, reported that an illiterate voter he wasobserving said one candidate had given him 200 riyals (a little over$4), but he preferred to vote for another. Two ballot boxes wereallegedly smashed in one Ta'izz constituency, and locks tampered within another, and a soldier in Sanaa claimed he saw two boxes switcheden route to the counting station. The staff of the Washington-basedInternational Republican Institute (IRI), which helped organizeinternational election monitors, said most of the dozens of suchreports phoned to their offices turned out to be false. Still moregrievous incidents involved the exchange of gunfire between Islah andYSP partisans in several locations including Tawwahi in Aden, Haburin Hajjah province, and Hodeida, resulting in several injuries anddeaths. The Supreme Court heard ten appeals and rejected at least twodozen others.
Such incidents are a testimony toa competitive and pluralist environment. Unlike other "democratizing"systems, Yemen inherited two ruling parties from the former YemenArab Republic in the North (the Congress or GPC) and the People'sDemocratic Republic in the South (the Socialists or YSP), who sharedpower during the transition period after unification in May, 1990. Athird important party, the Islah (Reform), which last year attemptedunsuccessfully to block a constitutional referendum, represents areligious coalition more moderate, on the whole, than its Algerian orEgyptian counterparts. Although much smaller in numbers, theIraqi-leaning Yemeni Ba'th also wields not insubstantial influencethrough its charismatic leader, Mujahid Abu Shuwarib, brother-in-lawto Shaykh al-Ahmar. Among some forty smaller parties formed duringthe transition period, fewer than half managed to recruit the legalminimum of 15 candidates to officially nominate a slate, so theirmembers ran as independents. No party ran candidates in everyconstituency. With an average of ten and as many as forty candidatesper constituency, the majority independents, the field waspacked.
But the parties are not quite asmutually exclusive as their labels suggest. The GPC, originally anEgyptian-style amalgam of all political tendencies within PresidentSalih's regime, contains both liberal elements and right-wingreligious tendencies. The YSP is divided between old-guard Leninistsand a larger number of social democrats. Islah comprises a slightlyuneasy alliance of Hashid tribal leader Shaykh 'Abd Allah al-Ahmar,Wahhabi-style religious partisans under the leadership of 'Abdal-Majid al-Zindani, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Ba'th has GPCand Islah connections but shares some policy perspectives, forinstance on women's rights, with YSP. Members of all three partiesran as independents, and, in a number of cases, under other parties'banners. Thus at a press conference at its party headquarters onApril 30 the YSP announced that in addition to 57 party memberselected, 13 socialist independents won with its support, and anadditional 17 genuinely independent deputies-elect share its visionof the future. Some independent intellectuals calculated that Islah,which declined to tell reporters how many unofficial sympathizersthey count on, actually has 30 supporters who won seats under the GPCbanner, plus three independents. By this speculative count, theresults would be Islah 95, GPC 92, and YSP 87.
Throughout, electoral bargainingwas intense and complex. During the campaign period, members of thevarious parties met in semi-public qat sessions to formulate mutuallyacceptable policy positions. For instance, in one session hosted bythe Ba'th, Abu Shuwariib and (GPC) Foreign Minister 'Abd al-Karimal-Iryani, an architect of the unity accord, were among a large groupwho listened as 'Abd al-Wahhab al-'Anisi, intellectual spokesman ofthe Islah, departed from his party's earlier stance to declaresupport for the constitution and the principles of democracy. Atother meetings and conferences during the week, heretofore improbableallies appeared publicly to enunciate principles of representation,the rule of law, and coalition government. Behind these scenesperformed publicly in part for an unprecedented Arab andinternational audience of journalists and observers, officers of boththe major and minor parties negotiated deals and agreements about theshape of a future coalition government. For some heads of smallerparties, such as Septembrist leader and SEC member Ahmad Qirhash, aprominent role in these negotiations more than compensated for thelack of official representation in the Chamber ofDeputies.
Comparable deliberations in manylocal constituencies also produced deals that might or might not behonored. During the campaign period over 1100 candidates from theinitial 4800 withdrew from the race. While some, like independentHamud al-Salahi in a rural district south of Ibb, expressed disgustwith the barter arrangements among supposedly rival parties, others,like Minister of Education Muhammad 'Abd Allah al-Jaifi, said theybowed out "to give others a chance."
For all the bargains that werestruck, and tentative promises made, the atmosphere of anticipationamong both citizens and party leaders as the counting began showedclearly that the results were not entirely foregone. Apart from theever-present apprehension lest competition erupt into civil disorder,the real cliff-hanger was the neck-and-neck race between Islah andthe Socialists for second place. Whereas the Socialists, even whileaccusing Islah of disrupting vote-counting in constituencies likeTawwahi and Habur where returns were close, declared unconditionalacceptance of SEC and Supreme Court decisions, Islah, one of whoseleaders, al-'Anisi, failed to win in his Sanaa constituency,proclaimed their refusal to accept the results in the southern andeastern governorates where, they alleged, the YSP used its securityforces to win an unfair majority. Other parties were also cryingfoul; after publishing a scathing critique, Nasiri-Unionist leader'Abd al-Malik al-Makhlafi, who as head of the Information Committeehad been SEC's spokesperson, was replaced for the last two pressconferences by GPC loyalist Sadiq Amin Abu Ra's who deflectedantagonistic questions with humor and folk wisdom about sourgrapes.
There was a good deal of truth indeclarations by President Salih, Abu Ra's, the YSP, and IRI that theexperience was a victory for the Yemeni people, a first but crucialstep towards democracy, and an example for the Arab world. Politicalviolence was isolated; power was redistributed symbolically in a waythat confirmed the current presidential leadership, but withoutgiving it a landslide mandate; some new institutions like the pressconference, the candidate rally, and the published party platformwere introduced into political practice; the principle of women'sparticipation, albeit on a rather minor scale with about 20% of theelectorate, and only two out of fifty candidates successful, wasaffirmed; the international press declared the experiment a success;and the West recognized an Arab election in which neither the radicalleft nor religious fundamentalists achieved a sweep, but rather acentrist coalition took the lead. Throughout, the Yemeni print mediareported freely and critically.
Notwithstanding their symbolic,even theatrical, significance, however, the parliamentary electionswere but one stage in a much broader political process. A number ofdecisions regarding the distribution and even the definition ofleadership positions remained. In the new parliament's first session,Islah leader 'Abd Allah al-Ahmar, paramount shaykh of the Hashidtribe and a past Speaker of the YAR parliament, won the speakershipwith 223 votes. Balloting for three other members of the Chamberleadership returned one from the Congress, one Ba'thi, and oneSocialist.
A package of constitutionalamendments put to the Chamber included proposals to replace theexisting five-man Presidential Council, technically selected by theChamber of Deputies, with a US-style two-term President and VicePresident, limited to two elected terms; creation of an elected upperhouse of parliament, a Consultative Council, with equalrepresentation for each governorate; and elections for localadministration including the Local Councils, district administrators,and governors. An Islah proposal would require all laws to conform toshar'ia.
Pending discussion of theseamendments, instead of electing a new Presidential Council parliamentvoted to extend the term of the existing leadership team, with threeCongress members and two socialists, for five months. After somewrangling, the transition period Prime Minister Haydar Abu Bakral-'Attas, a southerner and a socialist, was asked to form the newgovernment. He appointed 15 ministers from the GPC, eight socialists,four from Islah, and Abu Shuwarib. When Islah protested that theirallotment failed to reflect their parliamentary numbers two more oftheir members, including al-'Anisi, were invited to join the councilof ministers. Only a third of the ministers were new; twenty hadretained their posts. A general eight-point government program,including a renewed call for merger of the two armies, was put toparliament for a vote of confidence.
Just when bargaining andcompromises seemed to have ensured a high degree of post-electoralcontinuity and consensus, members of parliament balked. For more thana week in late July and early August al-Ahmar pounded his gavel in avain attempt to restore order as a raucous debate raged over theproposal and the related issues of constitutional amendments,composition of the Presidential Council, and unification of the armedforces. Following presentation of an alternative program drafted byparliamentary committee, two hundred and sixty deputies demanded toaddress the floor, threatening to drag the debate on endlessly. Twosessions of parliament were canceled as afternoon qat sessionsextending late into the evening attempted to bridge the deep riftsthat developed within each of the three major party blocs: onejournalist commented that instead of three blocs there were now 301.Finally the vote of confidence passed, essentially on theunderstanding that the substance of the debate would be carried forthto deliberations on the constitutional amendments package, which wereformally put to the Chamber on August 4, the last session before anextended recess. In the meantime, lest the amendment package falter,nominations for the Presidential Council were being put forward,along with speculation about how five seats were to be divided amongthree ruling parties: two GPC, two YSP, and one Islah? Two GPC, oneYSP, one Islah, and one independent? These pending questions promisethat parliamentary debates will continue to be lively.