ORIGINS AND ARCHITECTS OF YEMEN'S JOINT MEETING PARTIES

Michaelle Browers

doi:10.1017/S0020743807071085

ORIGINS AND ARCHITECTS OF YEMEN'S JOINT MEETING PARTIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2007

Michaelle Browers

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Michaelle Browers: Affiliation:
Michaelle Browers is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, Wake Forest University, Box 7568, Winston-Salem, N.C. 27109; e-mail: browerm@wfu.edu.

Article contents

Extract
STRUGGLE FOR UNITY
ARCHITECTS OF THE JMP
TOWARD AN INDEPENDENT ISLAMIC OPPOSITION: ISLAH'S MODERNIST WING
DIALOGUES, COMPROMISES, AND SILENCES
CONCLUSION

Rights & Permissions

Extract

In November 2005, the secretary generals of Yemen's largest Islamist party, the Reform Gathering (al-Tajammuʿ al-Yamani li-l-Islah, hereafter Islah); of the Socialist Party (YSP) that ruled the south prior to unification; of the Popular Nasirist Unity Organization; and of a small party consisting largely of liberal Zaydi intellectuals, the Union of Popular Forces (UPF), announced the publication of “The Program of the Joint Meeting for Political and National Reform,” in a joint press conference. The conservative Zaydi Party, al-Haqq, also signed the document. In July 2006, these same five parties upped the ante of their alliance by nominating Faysal bin Shamlan, a former oil minister and independent member of parliament, to oppose President ʿAli ʿAbdullah Salih in the 2006 election. The composition of the oppositional alliance that has come to be known as the Joint Meeting Parties (Ahzab al-Liqaء al-Mushtarak [JMP]) is particularly surprising when one considers that since unification in 1990 the ruling General People's Conference (GPC) and President Salih have sought to pit the JMP's two main parties—the YSP and Islah—against each other through a process of allying with or bolstering one at the expense of the other. As recently as 1994, these two parties were literally killing each other in Yemen's war of succession.

Information

Type: ARTICLES
Information: International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , November 2007, pp. 565 - 586
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743807071085 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: © 2007 Cambridge University Press

Zaydism is a Shiʿi sect that predominates in Yemen's north-central highlands. A Zaydi imamate ruled northern Yemen until it was overthrown in a military coup in 1962.

intellectuals, the Union of Popular Forces (UPF), announced the publication of “The Program of the Joint Meeting for Political and National Reform,” in a joint press conference.²

The Popular Nasirist Unity Organization was founded in Taʿiz in 1965. The Union of Popular Forces was founded in 1959 by Ibrahim bin ʿAli al-Wazir, a member of a prominent family of Zaydi sayyids who led a failed constitutional movement in 1948 against the imam.

The conservative Zaydi Party, al-Haqq, also signed the document.³

Al-Haqq was established in 1990 by a group of Zaydi scholars and sayyids primarily to defend Zaydism against the growth of Wahhabism in Yemen. The National Socialist Arab Baʿth Party, a small, Iraqi-leaning party that emerged in the 1960s from the Arab Nationalist Movement, was listed as a signatory when the JMP program was publicized. However, the party never formally signed and eventually positioned itself closer to the GPC.

In July 2006, these same five parties upped the ante of their alliance by nominating Faysal bin Shamlan, a former oil minister and independent member of parliament, to oppose President ʿAli ʿAbdullah Salih in the 2006 election. The composition of the oppositional alliance that has come to be known as the Joint Meeting Parties (Ahzab al-Liqaء al-Mushtarak [JMP]) is particularly surprising when one considers that since unification in 1990 the ruling General People's Conference (GPC) and President Salih have sought to pit the JMP's two main parties—the YSP and Islah—against each other through a process of allying with or bolstering one at the expense of the other. As recently as 1994, these two parties were literally killing each other in Yemen's war of succession.

The JMP joins groups committed to secularism with groups committed to implementing Islamic law (shariʿa), Zaydi Shiʿa with Shafiʿi Sunnis, and Islamists with socialists and Arab nationalists. How did such ideologically opposed groupings come together to stand under a common platform and behind a single presidential candidate? What is the significance of this alliance for Yemeni politics? Does the alliance signal these groups' retreat from ideology and dogmatism toward a more pragmatic, perhaps even more open and tolerant, approach to politics?

There is a considerable literature that engages what Jillian Schwedler has termed “the inclusion–moderation hypothesis”—that is, the idea that participation in multiparty political processes leads to increased willingness to work within the existing system.⁴

A full review of this literature is provided in Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), chapter one.

However, recent studies focusing on inclusion of Islamists have tested this theory with mixed results. Schwedler's own comparative work finds that although Jordan's Islamic Action Front Party (IAF) has become more open toward and tolerant of alternative perspectives through participation in pluralist political processes, the inclusion of Yemen's Islah party in similar processes has not. Janine Clark's recent study of the Higher Committee for the Coordination of National Opposition Parties in Jordan “questions the degree to which cooperation leads to ideological moderation.”⁵

Janine A. Clark, “The Conditions of Islamic Moderation: Unpacking Cross-Ideological Cooperation in Jordan,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 38 (2006): 539–60. See Clark for a useful overview of a number of studies that test the cooperation–moderation relation.

Studies by Schwedler, Clark, and others have moved much of the debate from whether inclusion results in moderation to whether working across ideological divides contributes toward moderation.⁶

Schwedler and Clark organized two conferences to study Islamist-leftist cooperation, at the European University Institute and the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies Mediterranean Programme in March 2004 and at the Rockefeller Foundation Conference Centre in Bellagio in August 2005. My own work benefited tremendously from participation in the 2004 workshop.

This shift largely results from Schwedler's important contribution to our understanding of the “mechanisms” by which moderation is likely to occur. Schwedler finds that the key difference between her cases is the extent to which the party's leadership has engaged in deliberations necessary to justify changes in strategy: “The IAF leadership as a whole has sought to justify new practices in terms of the party's central ideological commitments while Islah has not.”⁷

Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, 195.

By focusing less on political parties as a whole and more on party actors working through alternative political forums, this article expands upon something Schwedler's work noted: that Islah encompasses a “mixed bag of Islamists,” including some who are willing to collaborate with groups similarly excluded by the ruling party but that form their ideological rivals.⁸

Ibid., 192.

A shift in focus from inclusion in formal pluralist political processes to a focus on cross-ideological interaction in less institutionalized spheres also reveals something more in tension with the original inclusion–moderation thesis: it is often exclusion from more than inclusion in formal politics that puts various political actors into contact and conversation with alternative views.

The assumption of most studies of inclusion and moderation seems to be that cooperation is most likely to occur in the context of political liberalization. Although Yemen did experience a significant pluralization of politics with unification in 1990, after the 1994 war of succession there was a closing rather than an opening of spaces for political participation.⁹

Determining whether Yemen has become more or less democratic over a period of time is an inexact science at best. Although some studies indicate marginal progress in regard to particular indicators at points, the more general assessment seems to be that democratization in Yemen stalled in the mid-1990s. See Jillian Schwedler, “Yemen's Aborted Opening,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 4 (2002): 48–55. Sheila Carapico analyzes the curtailment of local initiatives by an increasingly centralized state following a period of democratic experimentation between 1990 and 1994: Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chapter seven. Comparing the 1993 and 1997 parliamentary elections, Abdu H. Sharif notes a series of “reversals” in Yemen's progress toward democracy: “Weak Institutions and Democracy: The Case of the Yemeni Parliament, 1993–97,” Middle East Policy 9, no. 1 (2002): 92. Freedom House moved Yemen from “not free” to “partly free” in 2003 but has more recently noted that “in the two years from the end of 2003 until the end of 2005, Yemen's overall performance on democratic governance weakened, with little progress to report on strengthening the rule of law, fighting corruption, and increasing transparency.” Brian Katulis and David Emery, “Country Report: Yemen,” Countries at the Crossroads (New York: Freedom House, 2006).

Robert Burrowes and Catherine Kasper argue that the trend since the 1980s toward concentrating political power in the hands of tribal shaykhs, military officers, and northern businessmen was “interrupted and challenged” briefly from 1990 to 1994 but then “accelerated after the war of succession in 1994 eliminated or weakened politicians from the former south Yemen and their Yemeni Socialist Party.”¹⁰

Robert D. Burrowes and Catherine M. Kasper, “The Salih Regime and the Need for a Credible Opposition,” Middle East Journal 61 (2007): 264.

The forging of those interpersonal and conceptual relationships that initiated and bound together actors in the JMP has taken place in a context of constricted political space. It is undertaken by individuals who must do the work of developing and justifying new strategies to account for changes in structural conditions against other forces within their own parties that are intent on maintaining old strategies. Most studies have focused on this process among Islamist parties, but the present study locates similar processes within non-Islamist parties that are cooperating with Islamists.

The analysis presented here works at three levels. I begin by looking historically at difficult interactions among various competing parties and ideological trends in Yemen while also drawing attention to how the Salih regime's attempt to control and marginalize opponents by playing them off one another ultimately contributes to their cooperation, dialogue, and alliance as an oppositional force. I next trace the intellectual path of and personal relationships among those individuals behind the emergence of a cooperation strategy among competing groups and behind the JMP's ability to put forth a common platform and a single candidate for the 2006 presidential elections. I then examine the alliance's ideological character and limitations through a study of various forums that have placed these political actors in conversation. Their dialogues reveal points of agreement and compromise as well as remaining differences. The article ends by assessing this alliance's significance for Yemeni politics and for our understanding of how ideational and structural factors interact in cases of cross-ideological interaction.

STRUGGLE FOR UNITY

Unification in 1990 brought together two ideologically opposed states: a socialist south (the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen [PDRY]) that was largely secular, bureaucratized, and economically planned, and a more free-market oriented but conservative north (the Yemen Arab Republic [YAR]) that was governed in a decentralized style by a military-dominated regime in tandem with tribal chiefs. The party that ruled the south, the YSP, was established in 1978 as a union of a number of parties, organizations, and national fronts operating in both north and south, and has contained members with a militant Marxist–Leninist orientation as well as democratic socialists. The north's ruling party, the GPC, was established in 1982 as a “conference.” Intended as an umbrella for various political trends, the GPC ultimately developed more along party lines after unification, although it still lacks ideological coherency and functions primarily to rally support around President Salih.

Michael Hudson notes that YSP leaders approached unification with “deep misgivings about what they saw as a closed, tribal-dominated Northern establishment.”¹¹

Michael Hudson, “Bipolarity, Rational Calculation and War in Yemen,” in The Yemeni War of 1994: Causes and Consequences, ed. Jamal S. al-Suwaidi (London: Saqi Books, 1995), 22.

A number of Islamist groupings were operating in Yemen at the time, particularly in the north, including—although neither limited to nor dominated by—the Muslim Brotherhood.¹²

Paul Dresch and Bernard Haykel report that “the Brothers in Yemen are few, and they are not unified.” “Stereotypes and Political Styles: Islamists and Tribesfolk in Yemen,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 27 (1995): 406.

Former southern and then postunification Prime Minister Haydar Abu Bakr al-ʿAttas voiced reservations to Hudson about the more extreme religious elements allied with the GPC: “While stating that the YSP welcomed the Muslim Brotherhood in the new pluralist political order, [al-ʿAttas] noted that the welcome depended on the Brotherhood's refraining from calling other parties (like the YSP) traitors or unbelievers.”¹³

Hudson, “Bipolarity,” 22.

Such concern was justified by ʿAbd al-Majid al-Zindani's returning from Saudi Arabia to declare war on unity and jihad against the atheists of the PDRY, alleging that southern leaders are afflicted by an imported culture abhorred by Yemeni people. Al-Zindani was one of the founders of Yemen's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and led the group from 1969 to 1978. Since 1978, the Brotherhood has been headed by Yasin ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Qubati, who has also served as minister of education. Al-Zindani has long been a controversial figure, even within Islamist circles, due to his often radical pronouncements and the attention they garner.¹⁴

Schwedler reports that “after more than a decade under Zindani's guidance, a number of younger Muslim Brotherhood members felt it was time for a change in leadership and mounted what several of them describe as an internal coup against Zindani. They felt that Zindani was developing his own cult of personality at the expense of the teachings of Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.” “Islam, Democracy, and the Yemeni State,” paper presented at the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy annual conference (Washington, D.C., April 2001). Al-Zindani was based in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, where he headed the Institute for Scientific Inimitability, an organization devoted to proving the correspondence of science and revelation. Further biographical information on al-Ahmar and al-Zindani is found in Khalil Muhammad al-Surimi, Lamahat min Masirat al-Islah al-Yamaniyya (Sanaa, Yemen: al-Surimi, 2004), 103–5 and 106–8, respectively.

Much of the tension between secular and Islamist forces at unity centered on the draft constitution, which referred to shariʿa as the “main” source of legislation. Al-Zindani and others insisted that shariʿa be affirmed as the “only” source of law. YSP leader ʿAli Salim al-Bid cautioned against “obscurantist forces seeking to cast doubts in the minds of the people about the draft constitution, so as to hinder the process of unification.”¹⁵

British Broadcasting Corporation, 19 April 1990.

Socialist forces threatened to resort to arms if the nation moved toward “Islamic dictatorship.”¹⁶

Joseph Kostiner, Yemen: The Tortuous Quest for Unity, 1990–1994 (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1996), 42. Tariq al-Fadli was eventually absorbed into the GPC and appointed to the upper house of parliament.

Radical Islamist groups, such as Tariq al-Fadli's Islamic Jihad, began undertaking assassinations of YSP leaders, justified as a defense of Islamic law in Yemen. A presidential decree stating that no law can contradict shariʿa was intended to forge a compromise, and the constitution was approved by referendum. Many Islamists, however, remained unsatisfied.

A few months after unity, a coalition of conservative tribal and religious forces founded the Islah party. The GPC supported its formation, believing that an Islamist party would put pressure on the socialists, who were considered the main threat to GPC power at the time. As an organization that articulates classically Sunni ideas, Islah also helped counterbalance Yemen's Zaydi forces. Whereas Islah's members tend to be more socially conservative than members of the ruling party, throughout the 1990s Islah and the GPC were close political allies, and the former is best characterized as “a party of the establishment center.”¹⁷

Dresch and Haykel, “Stereotypes and Political Styles,” 405.

Salih's respective tribal and personal ties with Islah's two most important leaders, al-Zindani and ʿAbdullah bin Husayn al-Ahmar, reinforced this alliance. Al-Ahmar heads both Islah and the Hashid tribal confederation, which includes Salih's own tribe. Al-Zindani was speaker of Islah's shūrā council (the party's central committee) until 2007. He has also acted as an adviser to Salih on educational matters since as early as the 1970s and served on the five-person presidential council after the 1993 elections.¹⁸

The presidential council was altered in 1993 to include one Islah member and then eliminated in 1994 through constitutional amendment.

Ideological conflict between Islamists and the YSP reached its height between 1990 and 1997, when Islah and the GPC were most closely aligned. Islah members commonly denounced YSP members as secularist, atheistic, and traitorous apostates. The YSP deplored Islah and other Islamist groups as reactionary forces doing the bidding of Saudi Arabia and considered their shariʿa agenda as anathema. In some respects, these differences reflected rhetoric of the north–south rivalry. Leaders of the two Yemens have long held misgivings about each other. Northerners saw the southerners as irreligious and oppressive; southerners viewed their ordered and disciplined system in positive terms against what they took to be northerners' anarchical and violent tribalism.¹⁹

Hudson, “Bipolarity,” 22.

North–south tensions continued after independence, and many YSP members considered Islah representative of the worst aspects of their former rival, but the Islamist–secularist opposition gave the rivalry additional force.

By the 1993 elections there was clear evidence of overt political struggle that would eventually lead to war in late April 1994. The growth in influence of Islah, which touted itself as the party of reform in seeking stricter implementation of Islamic law, was the source of much tension. Differences between Islah and the YSP often resulted in violence. At the end of April 1993, for example, supporters of one of al-Ahmar's sons carried out a rocket attack on YSP offices in the northern town of Hajja, killing approximately twenty-five people and wounding about fifty others. The YSP claimed that a “campaign of assassinations” against YSP officials by “traditionalist forces” had claimed the lives of over 150 party members.

After the 1993 elections gave the GPC 123 seats, followed by Islah with sixty-two and the YSP with fifty-six, the GPC announced the formation of a tripartite government coalition.²⁰

Iris Glosemeyer, “The First Yemeni Parliamentary Elections in 1993,” Orient 34 (1993): 446.

The YSP was alarmed by the GPC's domination of government, by the rise of a third party that shifted the balance of power between north and south, and by the growth of a political force that was clearly benefiting at its expense. After a series of quarrels, Vice President ʿAli Salim al-Bid retreated to Aden, along with other YSP ministers and civil servants, whence he issued a list of demands to be met as a precondition for his return to Sanaa. A multiparty mediation committee began designing a plan for restructuring the state so as to end the row. The “Document of Pledge and Accord,” signed in Amman by Salih and al-Bid in February 1994, did not fully normalize the political situation. Civil war broke out in May and was widely expected to be a stalemate.

However, al-Zindani rallied his “Afghans–Arabs”—Yemen's mujahidin who had returned in the early 1990s from their fight against Soviet communism in Afghanistan—to fight on behalf of the north against socialists at home. During the war, a Friday sermon by al-Zindani declared, “We Yemenis are called upon by God to fight against the communists…The YSP are communists, infidels and nonbelievers… The war we are fighting is jihad and I demand that all theologians declare it so.”²¹

Yemen Times, 20–26 June 1994.

ʿAbd al-Wahhab al-Daylami, an Islah member who after the war became minister of justice, issued a fatwa declaring all socialists unbelievers and sanctioning their killing. Two months later, the YSP was decimated, many of its leaders killed or in exile and its offices confiscated or destroyed. Although not all YSP members supported secession, the defeat of the movement was largely taken to be a defeat of the party itself.

After the north declared victory, a political coalition formed between the GPC and Islah. Islah's project to revise the constitution, initially blocked by the socialists, began to be debated as Islah sought to make the shariʿa Yemen's sole legislative source.²²

Masiraء ʿAtaء, April 1993–April 1997 (Sanaa, Yemen: al-Tajammu' al-Yamani li-l-Islah, n.d).

Al-Zindani maintained that acceptance of Islamic law as the basis of the constitution formed a precondition for the YSP's renewed participation in government. On this point, Islah prevailed, but the group was less successful in maintaining its power position as a ruling partner in the new government. The GPC no longer needed Islah to counterbalance the YSP, and with its loss of usefulness to the ruling power came a loss of influence. Thus, Islah's political marginalization and, ultimately, shift toward a more oppositional role vis-à-vis the GPC is directly tied to GPC success in its struggle for domination over the YSP.²³

This shift is well documented by Jillian Schwedler, “The Islah Party in Yemen: Political Opportunities and Coalition Building in a Transitional Polity,” in Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, ed. Quintan Wiktorowicz (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2004), 205–28.

Prior to the second parliamentary elections, scheduled for April 1997, Islah began a dialogue with the YSP and other parties of the Higher Coordination Council for the Opposition (HCCO) to address mounting irregularities in voter registration and other violations of electoral law. Although the precise date of JMP's establishment is unclear, even when based on recollections of the alliance's constituent members, these series of meetings mark the first time the appellation was used, indicating coordination between HCCO members and Islah.²⁴

The first reference to the JMP that I have found in print is in al-Milaff al-Wathaʿiqi li-l-Intikhabat, 1997: Ihsaʿiyyan, Tahliliyyan, Siyasiyyan (Sanaa, Yemen: Awan for Services and Information, 1997), 39–40. Another early reference is in Mahmud Mansur, “al-Masar al-Tatbiqi li-l-Tajribat al-Dimuqratiyya fi al-Yaman wa-Muءashshirat al-Mustaqbal,” Markaz Dirasat al-Mustaqbal 3, no. 4 (1998): 68–80. The Higher Coordination Council for the Opposition Parties (Majlis al-Tansiq al-ʿAlaء li-Ihzab al-Muʿarida), founded in 1995 to ally the YSP and several smaller, mostly left-leaning parties, consisted of seven political parties in 1997: the YSP, the Popular Nasirist Unity Organization, al-Haqq, UPF, the Yemeni Unity Gathering, the Baʿthist Party, and the Constitutional Freedom Party. Bilqis Ahmad Mansur, al-Ahzab al-Siyasiyya wa-l-Tahawwul al-Dimuqrati: Dirasat Tatbiqiyya ʿala al-Yaman wa-Bilad Ukhra (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 2004), 368.

Little reference to the JMP was found again until Islah allied with other opposition parties following the 2001 elections, after which the name entered into common use. In this sense, the appellation seems to refer specifically to an opposition alliance that includes Islah.

These early interactions resulted in the publication of a document calling for free and fair elections and questioning the legality of the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendums (SCER).²⁵

Formed in 1993, the SCER is responsible for administering and regulating all aspects of the electoral process. Its status as a neutral institution has been questioned by the opposition since its inception.

Nonetheless, Islah still entered into a preelection agreement with the GPC in which each would refrain from opposing the other in a number of constituencies, and Islah eventually dropped its complaints against the SCER. The YSP boycotted the elections in protest over the coordination agreements, fraudulent voter registration lists, continued restrictions placed on their party, and delays in returning assets and properties confiscated after the civil war. The boycott allowed the GPC to emerge from the elections with a majority of parliamentary seats.

Immediately after the elections, Islah accused the GPC of widespread intimidation and fraud at the polls. Islah was not offered any cabinet positions in the new government, and a member of the conservative Zaydi party, al-Haqq, was named minister of endowment, a position previously held by an Islah member. Asked in 1998 why Islah still had not formally joined with the HCCO, al-Ahmar responded that “the HCCO includes political parties that are close to each other in terms of thought, attitude, and policy”: Islah “does not converge with them,” and Islah shares more “common denominators” with the GPC.²⁶

British Broadcasting Corporation, 7 July 1998.

Islah supported Salih in the 1999 presidential elections, whereas HCCO members called for a boycott. Nonetheless, by 2001 Islah found itself not only securely in the opposition, but also in alliance with its former archenemy—the YSP—and other opposition parties it had previously opposed.

Signs of Islah's increased alienation from the ruling party and growing coordination with the YSP were readily apparent by August 2000, when Islah Secretary General Muhammad al-Yadumi delivered a speech before the second round of the YSP's fourth general congress in which he conceded: “We see that non-participation of the YSP in the 1997 parliamentary elections led to a political imbalance which did not serve the process of democracy.”²⁷

Yemen Times, 4–10 September 2000. The YSP's fourth party congress was held in two rounds, the first in November 1998, when various party policies and programs were voted on, and a second in August 2000, when party elections were held.

Prior to the 2001 local elections, Islah joined the HCCO in calling for guarantees to reform the political climate and electoral processes, including separation of ruling party leadership and president, and in demanding electoral supervision by a body other than the SCER, as they questioned its legality and neutrality. An article in the UPF weekly newspaper announced the JMP's broader aims: establishment of a democratic approach toward realization of freedom, pluralism, rule of law, peaceful rotation of power, and respect for human rights.²⁸

Sawt al-Shura, 26 August 2001.

Islah went so far as to call for an electoral boycott if voter rosters were not corrected but remained divided over whether to support the proposed constitutional amendments, which would increase the term of parliament members from four years to six and of the president from five years to seven, thus leaving Salih eligible to remain in office until 2013.

After President Salih addressed Islah members at their annual congress, the party withdrew its threat to boycott the elections. Nonetheless, for the first time neither Islah (nor the YSP) negotiated seats in advance with the GPC. The elections were marred by violent incidents and complaints of malpractice, most involving rival supporters of the ruling GPC and Islah. Al-Ahmar accused the ruling party of using the state's power over the media, army, and government funds “to marginalise the political parties and to turn them into a mere decoration to claim democracy.”²⁹

Nasser Arrabyee, “Strife Blights Elections,” Al-Ahram Weekly, 1–7 March 2001.

'Abd al-Wahhab al-Anisi, Islah's first and current (as of February 2007) secretary general, claimed that “after the GPC sensed its failure [in the election], it created a lot of problems through its associates.”³⁰

Yemen Times, 26 February 2001.

The GPC accused Islah of engaging in election “terrorism,” and al-Anisi responded by suggesting that what the GPC characterized as “terrorism” was actually undertaken by those with resources, such as the army, on its side. This sentiment was echoed by al-Yadumi, who stated in no uncertain terms that the GPC “stopped voters exercising their democratic rights” and committed acts of “terrorism and violence against its opponents.”³¹

Agence France Presse, 26 February–4 March 2001.

In a July 2001 interview, al-Ahmar reflected on the decision to reverse Islah's original plan to boycott the elections in response to presidential pressure. Asked if Islah would do the same in the next elections, he noted that “a fox is not caught twice in the same trap.” In the same interview, al-Ahmar characterized his party's relationship with the YSP and other opposition parties as “coordination to prompt the government to return to the democratic path” and declared that “for the sake of democracy, we should give our help to all the forces that are loyal to democracy.”³²

British Broadcasting Corporation, 27 July 2001.

This was a clear shift from al-Ahmar's 1998 assertion that Islah shared more with the GPC than the opposition. Nevertheless, the work necessary to develop the relations and ideas that would forge and sustain the JMP was achieved by other political actors.

ARCHITECTS OF THE JMP

From Party Socialism to Social Democracy: ʿUmar

Over the past several decades the YSP has moved from a centralized Marxist party-state to an oppositional entity that espouses party pluralism and democratic socialism. The party has more recently engaged in another move no less dramatic: from ideological opposite and mortal enemy of the Islamist forces in the region to important ally of Yemen's largest Islamist party. According to former parliamentarian Saadaldeen Ali Talib, only the socialist intellectual and activist Jarullah ʿUmar possessed those skills and traits necessary to play the role of “architect of the ‘joint meeting’ coalition”: “It took great negotiation skills and generous compromises to bring together the YSP, Islah, Nasserites, Baʿth, and other smaller parties, around a common cause, which all agreed was the protection of the democratic life in Yemen.”³³

Saadaldeen Ali Talib, “A Decade of Pluralist Democracy in Yemen,” in Parliamentary Reform, ed. Ali Sawi (Cairo: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2003), 208. A similar assessment of ʿUmar's role in brokering the YSP–Islah alliance is offered by Sheila Carapico, Lisa Wedeen, and Anna Wuerth, “The Death and Life of Jarallah Omar,” Middle East Report Online (31 December 2002).

ʿUmar's political awareness began in the 1950s, when he came into contact with Yemeni students returning from Egypt and Syria armed with Arab nationalist ideas. He became a member of the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1962, but after the June 1967 defeat and Egypt's departure from Yemen, combined with a period spent studying socialist writings while in prison from 1968 to 1971, his politics moved from Arab nationalist priorities toward leftist and regional emphases.³⁴

Many biographical details were provided by Fawwaz Traboulsi, a close friend of ʿUmar's since the early 1970s, who generously provided me with the text of unpublished remarks he delivered at a memorial held for ʿUmar at the Cultural Council for South Lebanon in Beirut.

While he was an officer in the police academy ʿUmar participated in clandestine party politics and helped found a new political entity called the Democratic Revolutionary Party, which was close politically to the radical administration in the PDRY. The different political movements in the north and south secretly unified into one party under the leadership of the YSP, and ʿUmar became a member of the ruling regime in Aden while living in Sanaa. He participated secretly in decision making in the south—often traveling to Aden in the morning and returning home to Sanaa in the evening—while engaging in armed struggle in the north, with the goal of unifying Yemen under the leadership of the YSP in the south. When a group calling itself the National Democratic Front (NDF) undertook armed insurgency against the northern regime with support of the south in 1979, ʿUmar acted as field commander. The NDF was defeated, largely due to support for the government from an informal grouping of Muslim Brotherhood members, tribal leaders, and other Islamists, many of whom would later form the core of the Islah party.

ʿUmar is often credited with moving the YSP toward a social democratic vision. By his own account, the party's bloody January 1986 internal struggle for power convinced him that “the problem resulted from the absence of democracy within the party and in our society. There were simply no possibilities for criticizing the party.”³⁵

Jarallah ʿUmar, “A Short Autobiography,” Yemen Gateway, www.al-bab.com/yemen/biog/jarallah.htm (accessed 20 August 2007).

ʿUmar maintains that he subsequently began to call for pluralism and democracy within the party: “The leadership first rejected this suggestion, but events in the Soviet Union, the troubled economic situation in the South, and the deleterious effects of the January events eventually worked to encourage the leadership to accept the call for political pluralism. We also began discussing with the Yemen Arab Republic the possibilities of creating a unified nation-state of Yemen. My role was to support unification but on the condition that there would be democracy, political pluralism and permission for parties to operate.”³⁶

Ibid.

After unity, ʿUmar served briefly as minister of culture. When the civil war broke out in 1994, ʿUmar recounts that he was unpopular with both sides of the conflict because he opposed aspects of both unity and the move toward succession, and he left Yemen for Egypt. ʿUmar states that his primary aim when he returned in 1996 was to rebuild the YSP on the basis of social democracy: “I had become convinced that social democracy was the best way to solve people's problems because it combines both political freedom and social justice.”³⁷

Ibid.

In 1997, the YSP experienced another internal conflict in which two opposing trends emerged. One side was led by ʿUmar, who maintained that the YSP should participate in the elections and continue its dialogue with the two ruling coalition parties (GPC and Islah). The second side was led by then YSP secretary general ʿAli Salih ʿAbbad Muqbil, a member of the old guard that had taken over leadership of the party after al-Bid departed for Oman during the civil war. Muqbil linked participation in the elections to resolving several issues that remained from the 1994 war, including return of YSP assets seized during the war and repatriation of exiled YSP leaders. Although ʿUmar adhered to the majority decision to boycott in the interest of preserving party unity, the YSP political bureau split over the elections, and Muqbil resigned his post and suspended his activities as secretary general of the HCCO.

In a 1998 interview ʿUmar revealed that the upcoming YSP congress—the fourth in the party's history but its first since 1985, when the party congress resulted in a bloody internal conflict—would mark “a turning point towards democracy for the YSP.” ʿUmar asserted: “Ideology will no longer feature prominently in our program. We will concentrate more on practical issues: democracy, human rights, general liberties, social justice, modernization and several other similar topics. There will be more openness in our party.”³⁸

Yemen Times, 2–8 November 1998.

In the first round of the party congress, held in November 1998, the YSP published new documents laying out the party's commitment to political pluralism and general freedom. The second round of the congress, not held until August 2000 due to concerns about achieving the highest level of participation from the party's members in exile, resulted in the party's first democratic elections. The outcome of the elections, which included ʿUmar's elevation to deputy secretary general, was viewed as a success for party reformers.

In his 2002 address to the Islah party congress, ʿUmar acknowledged that relations between the YSP and Islah had passed through many phases but affirmed that their present relationship was preferable to the past because of predisposition toward cooperation and coordination. He praised Islah as “a party with a distinguished position as a great political power that cannot be ignored.” He argued that in order to build a modern democratic country, intellectual and political pluralism, freedom of expression, and the right to protest had to be strengthened both in society and within political parties: “The consolidation of the country's political system presupposes the existence of a powerful opposition based on a society abundant in [political] movements, activism, and independent civil organizations, as well as an effective free press. Without a doubt, the Joint Meeting forms a step in this direction.”³⁹

A text of the speech is found in Sadiq Nashir, Jar Allah ʿUmar Yatakallam (Sanaa, Yemen: Markaz al-ʿAbadi, 2003), 80–84.

ʿUmar's intellectual transformation is not the only factor that accounts for his ability to play such a central role in forming a cross-ideological opposition to Yemen's ruling authority. By virtue of his experiences and training he was able to speak the language of Islam as well. ʿUmar began his education in traditional Islamic schools, first studying Qurءanic recitation in al-Ajlub and then Islamic law in Dhamar.⁴⁰

Ibid., 12–13.

In his speeches and writings ʿUmar quotes comfortably from the Qurءan and other religious sources while holding to a consistently secular stance based on a conviction that Islamic notions of justice, toleration, and democracy can be realized only in a secular society. ʿUmar's northern roots are also significant. According to one analyst, “Whenever an issue comes up for discussion in the party, a fault line develops between those who look at it from a strictly political viewpoint (the Northern members), and those [who] look at the issue from a Southern economic and social viewpoint (Southern members).”⁴¹

Mideast Mirror, 5 July 1999.

Northern YSP leaders seem to have more readily moved beyond the question of whether to unify toward a more pragmatic consideration of the character of a united Yemen.

On 28 December 2002, the YSP's second-ranking official, Jarallah ʿUmar, was assassinated after delivering a speech at an Islah party conference that confirmed the two parties' commitment to join in fighting issues of common concern. The individual accused of the murder reportedly admitted to targeting ʿUmar because he had brought Islah together with “secularists.” GPC newspapers accused Islah of being behind the assassination while Islah accused the state of “politically exploiting” the incident and trying to “drive a wedge” between Islah and the YSP. Most JMP members suggested it was the government that was most threatened by the coalition and most likely to benefit from a deterioration of relations among the opposition. In a comprehensive study of the assassination, YSP member Muhammad al-Maqalih dismissed both the notion that the act was the crime of a deranged individual and the idea that this was a crime of religious conviction, insisting that it was an assassination undertaken by political forces, for political aims.⁴²

Muhammad al-Maqalih, Man Qatala Jar Allah ʿUmar: al-Jarima bayn al-Din wa-l-Siyasa (Sanaa, Yemen: Markaz al-ʿAbadi, 2004). Al-Maqalih has moved through a number of organizations. By his own account, he began as socialist member of the Muslim brotherhood, later joining al-Haqq—drawn to Zaydi ideas of revolution—before finally settling in with the YSP. Nabil al-Sufi, Islah member and editor of News Yemen, explained al-Maqalih's move as follows: “Since parties are so undemocratic, if you find you have a disagreement, then you have no choice but to leave.” Interview with author, Sanaa, Yemen, 11 January 2006.

Since ʿUmar's death, by most accounts Yasin Saʿid Nuʿman, an economist and prime minister of south Yemen from 1986 until unification and former speaker of parliament after unification, presents the only remaining YSP leader who seems to have the potential to appeal to all sides in the JMP. However, his assumption of that role has not been seamless. Like ʿUmar, Nuʿman left Yemen for the United Arab Emirates during the civil war, returning only after a presidential amnesty was issued in September 2003. Shortly after his return, he faced a fatwa, attributed to some group at private and ultraconservative al-Imam University (headed by al-Zindani), which described him as an “infidel.” The wording of this fatwa recalled the fatwa issued during the civil war that named all socialists as unbelievers and decreed that all actions taken against them were permitted.⁴³

Yemen Times, 17–23 November 2003.

Unlike ʿUmar, Nuʿman, an economist by training, lacks any religious credentials and is from the south. Nonetheless, he is generally viewed as a pragmatic political leader. In July 2005 Nuʿman was elected secretary general of the YSP. Although the future of the YSP may be less certain after the loss of Jarallah ʿUmar, in the short run, the tragic circumstances of his death appeared to strengthen, rather than undermine, relations among JMP members.

TOWARD AN INDEPENDENT ISLAMIC OPPOSITION: ISLAH'S MODERNIST WING

Although the Islah party emerged with the blessing of the GPC, the group claims to have been a party of opposition since its origins. Islah member Muhammad ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Maqrami explains that Islah opposes only “programs and policies,” not “personalities and parties.”⁴⁴

Muhammad ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Maqrami, al-Tajammuʿ al-Yamani li-l-Islah: al-Ruءya wa-l-Masar—Dirasa fi al-Mashءa wa-l-Tatawwur (Sanaa, Yemen: Yemeni Reform Gathering, 1998).

Reflecting the traditional Sunni view of the state, which maintains that obedience to the ruler is a religious duty, in the context of Yemen this interpretation of religious duty forms an important contrast to the Zaydi principle of khurūj (rising against an unjust ruler), a perspective retained by parties such as al-Haqq as well as by members of the UPF. Al-Maqrami identifies the fight against the constitution drafted at unity, which specifies the shariʿa as the main, rather than sole, source of legislation, as the party's first act of opposition. Islah documents present the group as the preserver of Islamic and traditional values, and its program has focused on restoring Islam as the regulator of social, economic, and political activities.

It was not until Islah won the second largest number of parliamentary seats in 1993, al-Maqrami maintains, that it formally became a part of the ruling authority (sul⃛ān), and, even after joining into a ruling coalition, Islah found itself at odds with the GPC on such issues as Yemen's participation in an October 1995 economic summit that included an Israeli delegation in Amman. Justifying Islah's protests over this and other decisions taken by the government with which they ruled, al-Yadumi stated that “we are not proficient in putting one man in power and one man in the opposition. Whenever we oppose the ruling authority, it is out of our sensitivity that our existence in it is a national duty required by our religion and our love of our people and country. What appears as criticism against the governing coalition springs from the duty to enjoin good and forbid evil.”⁴⁵

Quoted in al-Maqrami, al-Tajammuء al-Yamani li-l-Islah, 113.

One sees evidence of a slight shift in the party's position after the 1997 elections, when the GPC won a parliamentary majority and began to rule alone, without a coalition with either the YSP or Islah. After this, al-Maqrami argues, Islah entered into the opposition in a different sense, truly moving into “active opposition” as one of two wings of the system: “Without a ruling wing and an opposition wing, the ruling system cannot soar higher; nay, it is not possible for democracy to be rightly erected, for how can the flourishing of democracy be conceived without the existence of a true and active opposition?”⁴⁶

Ibid., 164.

Other shifts in political thinking are apparent as well. Islah's 1993 program mentions peaceful transfer of power and “consultative democracy” (al-dīmuqrātīyya al-shūrūwīyya) as the basis of government but refrains from mentioning a multiparty system. The 1997 party program seems equally comfortable speaking of “consultative democracy” or just “democracy” and is more explicit about the necessity of pluralism. Party pluralism, like an active opposition, is identified as a cornerstone of democracy: “Political and party pluralism represent the firmly established basis of the rotation of power and its peaceful transfer between organized political groups and forces.”⁴⁷

Ibid., 189. The quoted passage is from a party document.

Despite al-Maqrami's seamless history of the party, certified by then secretary general al-Yadumi's preface, Islah can hardly be described as ideologically unified. Rather, Islah consists of a broad coalition with at least three wings: tribal forces, most significantly represented by parliamentary speaker al-Ahmar, who is leader of the Hashed tribe; a radical wing, represented by al-Zindani; and urban-based, university-educated Islamists, who are often characterized as champions of conservative merchant interests. Paul Dresch rightly clarifies that “although the grouping is sometimes spoken of as a ‘fundamentalist’ party, it is actually a party that contains fundamentalists—a rather different thing. Briefly put, tribesmen involved with Islah generally dislike the fundamentalists and the fundamentalists generally dislike the tribesmen.”⁴⁸

Paul Dresch, “The Tribal Factor in the Yemeni Crisis,” in The Yemeni War of 1994, ed. Jamal S. al-Suwaidi (London: Saqi Books, 1995), 39.

Islah's partnership in a cross-ideological oppositional alliance could not come from the tribal values of al-Ahmar, and certainly not from the radical and militant Islamism of al-Zindani. Although each wields considerable influence in Yemeni politics—al-Ahmar, as head of the Hashid tribal confederation and the longtime speaker of parliament, al-Zindani as a force with Islamic activists and militants and in the country's mosques and religious institutes, and both by virtue of their close ties to President Salih—it was younger, more moderate, and pragmatic individuals who led the way to entering the JMP.

Al-Yadumi, al-Anisi, and Muhammad Qahtan represent what François Burgat has characterized as Islah's “modernist wing.”⁴⁹

François Burgat, “Yemen: On Which Side?” Le Monde Diplomatique, 9 April 2003.

These moderates occupy many administrative positions in the party. Unlike al-Zindani and al-Ahmar, Islah leaders al-Yadumi, Qahtan, and al-Anisi are each referred to not as “shaykh” in Islah party documents, but as “professor” (ustādh), signifying their status as party intellectuals rather than as religious authorities or spiritual guides.⁵⁰

Ahmar's status as a shaykh derives from his leadership of the Hashid tribe and has different resonances than al-Zindani's title, which appears to stem from his status as a religious scholar. The shaykh–professor distinction may indicate a juxtaposition of “traditional” and “modern” as well.

The moderates bring political experience rather than religious credentials to their positions in Islah. After earning a degree in history, Al-Yadumi graduated from a police academy in Cairo and is well known to have worked for the state's security apparatus. He was the first editor of al-Sahwa, launched in 1985, with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood—it later became the Islah party's newspaper.⁵¹

Paul Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 175, 187.

Al-Yadumi was the party's secretary general until February 2007. Qahtan is one of the founding members of Islah and currently heads its political office and serves on its Shura Council. The current secretary general, al-Anisi, is said to maintain good personal relations with President Salih. According to Schwedler, al-Anisi has “diverse credentials that cross tribal, Islamic and Leftist lines.”⁵²

Schwedler, Faith in Moderation, 72.

These three figures were most commonly cited for their pragmatism by both Islah and non-Islah members of the JMP members interviewed in December 2005 and January 2006. In a 1992 interview Muhammad al-Yadumi, then a member of Islah's political bureau stated, “We are certainly not fundamentalists. Since the start of party activities we have done nothing that can be described as extremist.” Although the “we” in his claim seems to refer to the party as a whole, it can only refer to a part. This is apparent in al-Yadumi's response in the same interview to the question of whether Islah requires changing the constitution to stipulate Islamic law as the only source of legislation. Al-Yadumi replied, “If there's a good commitment to apply it, that's all right. The practice is the most important thing.”⁵³

Quoted in Brian Whitaker, “Rumblings from a Distant Outbreak of Democracy,” The Guardian, 4 January 1992.

His suggestion that changing the constitution was not a high priority for the party was either insincere or, more likely, demonstrated al-Yadumi's different priorities.

Al-Yadumi and other moderates are not without detractors from within Islah, many of whom take them to task for overstepping various lines. For example, after al-Yadumi leveled sharp criticism at the GPC at the opening session of the party's sixth conference, holding it responsible for shortcomings and deterioration in all aspects of life in the country, a presidential visit to the home of al-Ahmar ensued. For a while in the run-up to the 2003 elections, it looked as if Islah would have three different candidate lists: one from the tribal wing led by al-Ahmar, a Muslim Brotherhood list led by al-Zindani, and a list dominated largely by intellectuals from Islah's political organizational wing led by al-Yadumi, Qahtan, and al-Anisi.⁵⁴

Yemen Times, 24 February–2 March 2003.

After the 2003 elections, Qahtan launched incisive critiques of the ruling GPC for what he deemed its subversion of democracy. He was quoted as directly addressing Salih: “You, president, were the reason behind this problem, yet it will never be solved [the issue of real democracy] if you don't want to solve it.”⁵⁵

Nasser Arrabyee, “Contentious Poll in Yemen,” Al-Ahram Weekly, 8–14 May 2003.

Qahtan later issued an apology for his remarks, presumably under pressure, and the Islah party also formally apologized for the offense.

Qahtan again found himself under fire from within his party following a symposium, “Horizons of Peaceful Transfer of Power,” sponsored by Women Journalists Without Borders. Qahtan reportedly responded to the suggestion that only Salih could lead Yemen by asserting that “there are many women as well as men who could likely rule better than President Salih and former President Ibrahim al-Hamdi, and even Shaykh ʿAbd al-Majid al-Zindani.”⁵⁶

Yemen Observer, 4 October 2005.

Later reports suggested Qahtan had declared women better than al-Zindani, and public criticisms of Qahtan were leveled by al-Zindani supporters at al-Iman University. Around the same time, Qahtan received threatening mail. Qahtan later apologized for the comments, saying they were taken out of context and not intended to harm al-Zindani's image. Qahtan blamed the state's secret police, rather than al-Zindani's supporters, for the threatening letter. In the run-up to the 2006 presidential elections, Qahtan, along with YSP leader Yasin Saʿid Nuʿman, were the two leaders whose names most commonly circulated as potential candidates representing the JMP, although that honor would finally to go to an individual outside both parties.

The Third Force: Mutawakkil

According to Muhammad ʿAbd al-Malik al-Mutawakkil, a political science professor and deputy secretary general of the Union of Popular Forces, a small, liberal Zaydi opposition power, “the ideological confrontation in our country is not a confrontation between capitalism and Marxism or between nationalism and regionalism or between Muslims and non-believers or between South and North. It is a confrontation between a democratic ideology and an oppressive ideology.”⁵⁷

Muhammad ʿAbd al-Malik al-Mutawakkil, “The Gap Between the Government and the Governed,” in Yemen Today, 67.

He further clarifies that “the military and tribal institutions are … on the side of the oppressive regime, whereas civilian institutions are more keen to see democratic government.” Acknowledging that there are “military and tribal people who are for a democratic government,” as well as “people in civilian institutions who stand with the oppressive regime,” al-Mutawakkil maintains that this classification represents the “general orientation of these institutions.” So, too, these civilian institutions must be reformed, as they are in many respects “the result of a totalitarian ideology and culture which contradict the foundations of a democratic system.”⁵⁸

Ibid., 68, 69.

The same sentiment is found in a textbook that al-Mutawakkil wrote for his political science courses at Sanaa University. Again, he clarifies that “the ideological struggle in the Yemeni today is not a struggle between Marxism and capitalism, or between Pan-Arab nationalism [qawmīyya] and state nationalism [wa⃛anīyya], or between Islam and unbelief [kufr], nor even a struggle between south and north or between Shafiʿi and Zaydi, or between Qahtanis [indigenous southerners] and ʿAdnanis [immigrant northerners].” Al-Mutawakkil defines the struggle as one between two sets of “values”: the values of democracy and the values of domination.⁵⁹

Muhammad ʿAbd al-Malik al-Mutawakkil, al-Tanmiyyat al-Siyasiyya (Sanaa, Yemen: n.p., 2004), 189–90.

The issue of most importance, al-Mutawakkil asserts, “is that we adopt one concept of human rights, that we affirm it collectively and that we struggle collectively against its usurpation … regardless of whether it is clothed in Arab nationalist, Islamic or national garb.”⁶⁰

Muءtamar al-Qawmi al-Islami al-Awwal: Wathaءiq wa-Munaqashat wa-Qararat al-Muءtamar (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 1995), 270.

In al-Mutawakkil's assessment, the problem with reform movements in Yemen lies in their lack of full comprehension of basic requirements for building a modern and democratic state. In the 1990s, he argues, proponents of democratic change did succeed in articulating the basis for such a state in the Document of Pledge and Accord. However, in his view, even the authors of that document did not manage to build tools sufficiently powerful to implement the necessary changes. Specifically, they must develop and transform institutions of civil society (al-mujtamaʿ al-madanī) along the nonhierachical and decentralized lines so that civil society comes to embody democratic practice and respect for differences of opinion: “The first and basic step for building a new society and establishing the democratic state includes the rebuilding of civil society so that it becomes a model for the desired state and it becomes an alternative to a state built on the basis of the military.”⁶¹

Mutawakkil, al-Tanmiyyat al-Siyasiyya, 193–4.

Civil society requires a political and intellectual elite (nukhba) who “truly understand the meaning of democracy, and exemplify in their behavior, institutions and leadership all principles and values of the democratic ideology.”⁶²

Ibid., 194.

Al-Mutawakkil manages to communicate with all sides not only because of his personal demeanor—which comes across as scholarly and reasoned, more the professor than the ideologue—but also because of the intellectual position he occupies: he is at once highly religious and consistently liberal in perspective. At the same time, al-Mutawakkil has proven to be sharply critical. By his own account, he comes from “a Zaydi background in which the principle of khurūj from a despotic ruler forms an important basis,” although he denies that Zaydi doctrine advocates use of violence.⁶³

Al-Muءtamar al-Qawmi al-Dini al-Awwal, 268.

Whereas his critique is most often directed at the ruling party, al-Mutawakkil has not refrained from criticizing the opposition. In this latter role, he has been significant in keeping a number of sides in the opposition. This is demonstrated after the surprise appointment of Zaydi religious scholar and al-Haqq leader Judge Ahmad al-Shami as minister of religious affairs, a position previously held by an Islah member. Shami took the job even though his party declared support for abolishing the religious affairs ministry altogether. The appointment was viewed by many as an attempt to put pressure on and curb the influence of Islah. Al-Mutawakkil warned al-Haqq that it was being used to settle scores for the GPC and that al-Haqq could contribute more in opposition than in joining a government in which it would have no say.⁶⁴

Mideast Mirror, 23 May 1997.

Al-Mutawakkil's desire to construct an opposition truly independent of the governing power was again apparent after opposition parties failed to get the parliamentary votes necessary to nominate a presidential candidate in the 1999 elections. Mutawakkil predicted that “after the comedy of the presidential elections is over, the ruling parties will try to tempt the opposition parties in an attempt to deprive them of the chance of being a real opposition that people may choose someday when they think of a change. The success of the government in this regard depends on the Coordination Council for Opposition and its reaction to such attempts. The opposition parties had to make a clear-cut decision after the rejection of its nominee.”⁶⁵

Yemen Times, 16–22 August 1999.

Al-Mutawakkil called for boycotting the elections. On election day al-Mutawakkil quipped, “I went to the mosque instead [of the voting] to mourn the death of democracy in Yemen.” There was no need to vote, he said, because the results were already known.⁶⁶

Faiza Saleh Ambah, “Low Turnout, Attacks Mar Yemen Vote,” Associated Press Online, 23 September 1999.

DIALOGUES, COMPROMISES, AND SILENCES

Al-Mutawakkil claims that the idea of engaging Islah developed through discussions he had with ʿUmar at the 1994 National–Islamic Conference (NIC), convened by the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut.⁶⁷

Muhammad ʿAbd al-Malik al-Mutawakkil, interview with author, Sanaa, Yemen, 3 January 2006.

The NIC represents one of several forums that have placed these individuals in dialogue. Both al-Mutawakkil and ʿUmar have regularly attended the conference since their first meeting in 1994. Al-Mutawakkil was the general coordinator for the second, third, and fourth conferences. ʿUmar's first real relationship with Islah was with al-Anisi and developed in large part through their joint participation in the NICs in 1997 and 2000. Qahtan also attended the 1997 and 2004 meetings.

Members of both parties also have been brought together by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a nonprofit organization based in the United States, with offices abroad to provide assistance to civic and political leaders advancing democratic values, practices, and institutions. NDI activities, which date back to Yemen's first multiparty legislative elections, in 1993, have always included consultations with individual political parties. More recently, NDI has brought together groups, including the YSP and Islah, for joint consultations and workshops. The weekly newspaper al-Shumuء reported in 2001 that the Islah–YSP alliance was a direct result of meetings coordinated by the NDI.⁶⁸

al-Shumuʿ, 3 February 2001.

According to the NDI's quarterly report covering the period from April to June 2005, the institute held a consultative meeting with women's committees of the GPC, YSP, Islah, and Nasirist parties, a workshop on conflict-resolution techniques for members of the same four parties, and a workshop on group facilitation techniques for members of all parties' central branches.⁶⁹

NDI, Yemen: Political Party Capacity Building and Women's Participation (CEPPS/NDI Quarterly Report: April–June 2005).

In October 2002 the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., organized workshops addressing the “Compatibility of Islam and Democracy.” Among the participants were ʿUmar, al-Anisi, and Qahtan, as well as leaders of the Nasirist, Baʿthist, UPF, and al-Haqq parties. The second plenary session featured Qahtan and ʿUmar. In response to Qahtan's statements affirming his party's commitment to democracy, ʿUmar stated that, if that was his party's position, the YSP had no quarrel with it, although ʿUmar's statements also affirmed the necessity of secularism in order to foster an atmosphere of tolerance.⁷⁰

See CSID, Workshops on Islam and Democracy: Morocco, Egypt, Yemen (2002).

These various organizations and meetings provided important opportunities for dialogue and facilitated development of a reform platform that could appeal to an ideologically wide range of groups frustrated by the GPC's domination of political life in Yemen.

Platform for Reform

The 2005 JMP program asserts that Yemen “stands at a crossroads,” and “the route it chooses to take will decide its fate: whether it chooses the path of comprehensive national and political reform … or continues along its same path,” which will inevitability lead to catastrophe. The JMP put forth a common project for reform calling for political, economic, and social reforms, by their own assessment, in order to avoid the latter fate. Among its most significant features are a call to replace the current system of “one-person rule,” in which power is concentrated in the president's hands and corruption is encouraged, with a parliamentary system with a separation of power, an independent judiciary, and administrative decentralization. In regard to the economy, the document calls for development of “a national strategy for inclusive and sustainable development.” In addition, the program mentions reforms at the cultural and social levels, including legal protections for journalists, education reforms, and women's advancement.

The GPC reacted immediately and harshly to the program, alternatively criticizing it for not providing any real suggestions for reform, for targeting the president, and for fomenting national divisions prior to elections. The GPC met individually with leaders of the YSP and Islah shortly after release of the program, and rumors began circulating that one or the other of the parties was planning to realign with the ruling power prior to elections. However, the alliance was not rattled. In a further act of unity, during its first official congress in December 2005, the JMP succeeded in forming an executive committee made up of leaders from each of the participating parties and selecting Muhammad Qahtan of Islah as the group's spokesperson.

Perhaps the alliance's greatest sign of unity was revealed when Faysal bin Shamlan was chosen as the JMP candidate for president. He has ties to both the YSP and Islah but has maintained independence from both. Born in the Hadramout region in 1934, Bin Shamlan was minister of public works and transport, as well as a member of the Supreme People's Council in south Yemen. Bin Shamlan also has ties to moderates in the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen. Prior to independence, he was involved with establishing a Brotherhood branch in the south to aid with the fight for independence.⁷¹

Faysal Makram, “Al-Muʿaradha al-Yamaniyya Yattajihu li-Hasm Khiyariha bi-Tarshih Faysal bin Shamlan li-l-Riءasa,” Al-Hayat, 6 July 2006.

With the pluralization of political parties after unity, Bin Shamlan helped found a liberal Islamist party called the Free Yemeni Forum (Hizb al-Minbar al-Yamani al-Hurr), although he returned to his independent status after a brief period.⁷²

Newsyemen, 8 August 2006.

Bin Shamlan's credibility within the JMP seems to lie in his consistent stand against corruption in government. He has resigned from government positions at least twice to protest what he saw as government misdeeds. When he resigned as oil minister in 1995 to protest the dismissal of his proposal for reforming that ministry, it is said that he returned his ministry car before catching a taxi home. In 2003 he resigned his seat in protest against the extension of parliament, a move he deemed unconstitutional, reportedly stating that he would not serve beyond the four years for which the people had elected him.⁷³

Nabil Sultan, “Yemen: Breath of Principle in Presidential Race,” Inter Press Service News Agency, 5 July 2006.

Bin Shamlan's campaign slogan—“a president in service of Yemen, not Yemen at the service of the president”—reflected a similar view.

Bin Shamlan identified the circulation of the JMP reform initiative as one of the main goals of his candidacy.⁷⁴

Newsyemen, 5 July 2006.

The document represents the outcome of over a year and a half of discussions, debates, and revisions. It is a carefully crafted text and marks a significant step toward forging an effective, substantive, and unified oppositional alliance. Yet, it is also important to consider what is not mentioned in the document and those points where the text does not correspond with the actions of its signatories.

Silence on Secularism

At the first NIC, ʿUmar maintained that “on the issues of Palestine and confronting foreign occupation, colonialism and imperialism in its new forms, we do not differ and we can easily form a declaration now.” However, on the issues of the right to ijtihād (independent reasoning) and freedom of expression, which he understands as an absolute and unrestricted right, ʿUmar suggests differences remain.⁷⁵

Al-Muءtamar al-Qawmi al-Islami al-Awwal, 168.

Article three of Yemen's constitution, ratified in 1991, states that “Islamic law is the main source of legislation.” Immediately following the civil war, the article was rewritten to specify that “Islamic law is the source of all legislation.” In addition, article 59 of the new constitution made the defense of religion a “sacred duty.” Referring to the changes, ʿUmar notes that although Islamic law provides a “general authority,” “ijtihād is guaranteed according to the general interest and development of the community.” He argues that “after the [civil] war was finished and the Yemeni socialist party was defeated, representatives of the Islamic trend said that they want to remove the passage that guarantees ijtihād. Others were not able to oppose this demand because they feared their opposition would be against their religion…. I see that the cessation of ijtihād and the rigidity that overtook this umma are among the reasons for the stagnation, nondevelopment and backwardness that has overcome us.”⁷⁶

Ibid., 168–9.

In a 1998 forum held at the Yemeni Center for Strategic Studies, “The Future of the Yemeni Socialist Party in Light of its Fourth Congress,”⁷⁷

Although not officially linked to Islah, the Center for Strategic Studies' first and present directors—Nasr Taha Mustafa and Muhammad al-Afandi, respectively—have been members.

ʿUmar again questioned Islah's stance on the role of Islamic law in politics, here in response to criticism from two other participants: Zayd al-Shami, head of Islah's education division, and Muhammad al-Maqalih. After diplomatically confirming his understanding that criticisms of the YSP regarding its relationship to Islam “only emerge from a desire of these brothers to improve the position of the socialist party,” ʿUmar clarified that while there is no question about the central role of Islam as a religion and a doctrine, differences emerge when Islam is said to provide a law for the state.⁷⁸

The conference took place on 8 December 1998 and was published in the fifth volume of the serial Nadwat al-Mustaqbal, entitled Mustaqbal al-Hizb al-Ishtiraki al-Yamani fi Dawء Muءtamaru al-Rabiʿ, ed. Faris al-Saqqaf (Sanaa, Yemen: Markaz Dirasat al-Mustaqbal, 2002).

First, various schools of law and individual jurists cannot agree on what constitutes Islamic law. Second, there are many things that Islam did not legislate because they did not exist at the time of revelation. ʿUmar argues that although Islam speaks of such things as consultation and justice, the tools for addressing these issues must come from the contemporary age, and religion can only offer “a general point of reference.” To establish his point, ʿUmar quotes from both the Qurءan and from a respected jurist: “When God said: ‘Today I finished your religion for you,’ he did say [he determined] every issue of life.” Further, “as Shaykh al-Asfahani said: ‘Issues are not finite, but the text is,’ and indeed the issues of life are not finite.” ʿUmar maintains that the YSP “wants a civil state but this civil state need not contradict Islam.” Those who say the YSP must be an Islamic party in the context of Yemen miss the crux of the problem: “Our problem is not with the sky. Our problem in on the earth, issues of the people, issues of despotism, issues of building the state, of democracy, human rights—these are what our programs include. Thus I affirm that the YSP is a party that complies with the constitution so long as it is committed to Islam as the religion of the state in a general form. However, we are clearly against the establishment of a religious state and with the establishment of a civil state.” The difference between a religious state and a civil state, ʿUmar clarifies, is that the leader of the religious state is accountable only to God, but the leader of a civil state can never be considered more than a mere man who is elected by those to whom he is accountable.

In a 2003 interview al-Yadumi responded to a question regarding whether Islah will continue to seek an Islamic state by asserting that “there is no longer any principled dispute between the political forces in the Yemeni arena and Islah over this issue. The dispute between us is now over programs because all these forces and organizations abide by the constitution, whose articles stem from the shariʿa. Also, they abide by the law governing political parties, which obliges every Yemeni party to reject slogans, principles, and policies that conflict with the shariʿa.” He continues, “Communism has disappeared from the world and the leftist parties and organizations are reviewing their situation. Nationalist organizations are doing the same thing. Everyone is undertaking self-examination. The constitutional and legal situation in our country places us all in the same situation. They do not disagree over goals; they only disagree over the means.”⁷⁹

Al-Majalla, 26 June 2003.

One could interpret this statement as affirmation that Islah considers the matter of Islamic law resolved in its favor and sufficient for establishing Islamic rule in the country. One could also read it as indication that Islah was willing to forgo raising the issue further, as long as the shariʿa was upheld in the text of the constitution, even if not in practice. Neither interpretation seems to account for the lack of a single mention of Islamic law in the JMP document. The parties refrained from broaching the subject in the text, despite the ability of individuals to put forth moderate, albeit divergent, views on the topic.

Women's Political Participation

Historically, ʿUmar and other members of the YSP have viewed their party's stance on women as one of its defining elements. Compared with northern women, southern women enjoyed a much greater public role under the YSP, Generally, the YSP and Islah speak a different language in regard to women. In their 1993 election platform, the YSP stated “the guarantee of women's equal rights” as a centerpiece of its platform, whereas Islah stipulated that “women should be protected from exploitation.”⁸⁰

Rashad Muhammad ʿUlaymi and Ahmad ʿAli Bashari, al-Baramij al-Intikhabiyya li-l-Ahzab wa-l-Tanzimat al-Siyasiyya fi al-Jumhuriyya al-Yamaniyya: Dirasa Muqarana (Sanaa, Yemen: Majallat al-Thawabit, 1993).

Women have been active in Islah, and the party has supported their participation in elections, in some regions even providing women voters transport to polling stations. However, the party has not supported women as candidates for political office, as this would give them authority over men.⁸¹

Reference is to a hadith that states, “Women are the full siblings of men” (al-nisā' shaqāءiq al-rijāl), and Qurءan 4:34, which asserts, “Men are the protectors of women,” alternatively translated as “Men are in authority over women” (al-rijāl qawwāmūn ʿalā al-nisāء).

Among the constitutional changes of 1994 was the specification of women's rights in accordance with Islamic law in article 31: “Women are the sisters of men. They have rights and duties, which are guaranteed and assigned by the shariʿa.” A 1996 Islah document on women's electoral participation noted that because democracy was “still in its infancy and required a period of maturation” and issues such as the achievement of “equality of opportunities between the rich and poor, between those with influence and power and ordinary people, and between the ruling party and the party of opposition” remain unresolved, raising the issue of women's status was premature. Only after society achieves progress in these areas would the time prove ripe for “joining opinions and values based on the shariʿa” in order “to point Yemeni women toward a better tomorrow.”⁸²

Memo from the women's office of Islah, entitled “The Experience of Women in the Past Parliamentary Election for the Islah Party,” in Taqrir ʿan al-Halqat al-Niqashiyya hawla Taqayyum Musharakat al-Marءa fi al-Intikhabat al-Sabiqa Abril 93 wa-Tashjiʿ Musharakat al-Nisaء ka-Nakhubat wa-Marshuhat fi al-Intikhabat al-Niyabiyya al-Qadima Abril 97 (Sanaa, Yemen: National Committee for Women of the Yemeni Republic, n.d.), 21.

The JMP platform identified “empowering women to enjoy their constitutional and legal rights and participation in public life” as a goal but seemed intentionally vague on the character of participation to be sought. Conversations with several JMP leaders revealed that the issue of women was one of the main points of disagreement, second only to the issue of secularism—or the status of Islamic law in the constitution. According to al-Mutawakkil, “it was apparent that Islah preferred to discuss this issue [of women] among themselves” rather than with the other parties. It appears that Islah did continue to discuss the issue internally, and certainly women's groups continued to seek an expansion of women's political role.

Prior to the 2003 elections, Qahtan announced that his party would again decline to nominate women candidates. However, his statement on the issue revealed that there was disagreement within Islah. Qahtan, who is well known to be in favor of women's political participation, justified his party's decision by saying that women would not be nominated primarily because they would not win: “Our society is still ignorant and there are still some social, cultural and ideological principles that women cannot stand against. Although Islah was first to nominate women to its higher committees, we reached a conclusion that it is still difficult to nominate women from Islah for the coming elections. We also found it impractical, especially if we consider the number of previous nominations of women even within our party itself.”⁸³

Yemen Observer, 1 February 2003.

Qahtan later announced that Islah required “two years to reach a clear position on women candidates.”⁸⁴

Yemen Times, 3–9 February 2003.

JMP members sought to maintain their alliance as the election neared, through the construction of a platform that all the relevant opposition parties could sign, but the Yemen Times reported that “the JMP could not reach an agreement on how to tackle the parliamentary elections” and that “nomination of women [candidates] is the first sticking point.”⁸⁵

Ibid.

In 2004, Qahtan asserted that there were “absolutely no red lines for the involvement of women in the political affairs of the party,” and there was “nothing to prevent Islahi women from running in the local council elections in 2005 and the parliamentary elections in 2009.” However, he also asserted that women would not fully realize their rights without a struggle and called for “the women in Islah and other parties to impose their views.”⁸⁶

Yemen Observer, 25 September 2004.

Shortly before the publication of the JMP program, Qahtan again affirmed Islah's acceptance of female candidates, but no official party declaration followed his statement. Qahtan acknowledged internal divisions, revealing that older Islah members who clung to “traditional views” were holding the party back on this issue.⁸⁷

Yemen Observer, 9 October 2005.

CONCLUSION

The failure of the parties to achieve meaningful support for female political candidates underscores that liberalization is not something that develops just through interaction across a plurality of parties or groups. It also requires actors within that group who are already well ahead of their parties and willing to do the work of introducing and defending new practices. The failure also reveals the inability of Islah's moderate wing to prevail over more conservative or radical forces within the party. It is worth noting that moderate and progressive forces are weak when measured by women's political participation, not only within Islamist groups but also more generally in Yemeni politics. Less than one percent of candidates in the local elections was female and of those, most ran as independents, suggesting a general lack of party support for female candidates.⁸⁸

European Union Election Observation Mission, “Yemen, Final Report: Presidential and Local Council Elections,” 20 September 2006.

The weakness of moderate forces in Islah was further underscored when two of its most powerful leaders, al-Zindani and al-Ahmar, made a final-hour decision to back Salih's reelection despite their parties' formal position as sponsors of a JMP presidential candidate. Further, although Bin Shamlan was the JMP candidate, one YSP member, Ahmad al-Majidi, and one Islah member, Fathi al-Azab, ran as independent candidates. The YSP suspended al-Majidi's membership in the party, but no similar action was taken against al-Azab.⁸⁹

A fifth candidate, Yasin ʿAbd al-Saʿid, stood for the “National Opposition Council,” an alliance of a dozen smaller parties that, despite their name, are known to be close to the ruling GPC. Al-Saʿid is head of the Nasirist Democratic Party, not to be confused with the Popular Nasirist Unity Organization, which is part of the JMP and led by Sultan al-Atwani.

In February 2007 al-Ahmar was reelected party chairperson despite attempts to replace him and in violation of Islah bylaws that limit leadership to three terms. However, party elections took place while al-Ahmar was receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, and al-Yadumi, the leader many considered the primary rival to al-Ahmar in the elections, was elected deputy chairperson. Combined with changes in Islah's Shura Council—including the replacement of al-Zindani as speaker in favor of deputy speaker Muhammad ʿAli Ajlan and the election of thirteen women to the 130-member body for the first time in Islah party history—developments may bode well for moderates in the long run.

The JMP is plainly dependent upon certain key political actors within the main opposition parties. These are largely individuals who have forged this cross-ideological platform for reform. It is promising that moderate individuals occupy key positions in many parties, including Islah, and are able, on occasion, to cooperate with ideologically opposed groups even when evidence of party moderation is inconclusive. The ability of JMP architects to act politically has been demonstrated by publication of the program for reform and their presidential candidate's respectable 22 percent of votes. Yet, even those JMP initiatives that have been successful in demonstrating the party's independence as an oppositional force speak to the weaknesses as well as strengths of this alliance. The long-term viability of oppositional alliances such as the JMP depends not only upon individuals maintaining and deepening interpersonal and ideational relationships across ideological divides, but also upon successful defense of these relations and strategies and their own positions within their parties against competing strategies.

However, this essay is not just a call to disaggregate political forces (focusing on individuals and groups within parties rather than parties as a whole) or merely an affirmation of Schwedler's and Clark's efforts to shift the focus from inclusion in formal pluralist political processes to a wider range of interactions that take place across ideological divides. Rather, the focus on individuals' interactions points to one shortcoming of the causal relation posited by the inclusion–moderation thesis from the outset. Formulating the question as how structural arrangements (changes in practice) impact ideas (changes in thinking) neglects the modes of thinking and the character of individuals necessary to bring about the interactions in the first place. This is not to reverse the causal relation by suggesting that the existence of moderate ideas alone will necessarily bring about more liberal and democracy practices, but only to assert a premise that seems very basic to this political theorist: that structures and agents exist within a dialectical relationship, as do material conditions and ideological contexts. Inclusion and cooperation require moderates.

Author's note: The author thanks Bob Burrowes, Dan Corstange, Jessica Devaney, and the anonymous IJMES referees for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Article contents

ORIGINS AND ARCHITECTS OF YEMEN'S JOINT MEETING PARTIES

Extract

Information

STRUGGLE FOR UNITY

ARCHITECTS OF THE JMP

From Party Socialism to Social Democracy: ʿUmar

TOWARD AN INDEPENDENT ISLAMIC OPPOSITION: ISLAH'S MODERNIST WING

The Third Force: Mutawakkil

DIALOGUES, COMPROMISES, AND SILENCES

Platform for Reform

Silence on Secularism

Women's Political Participation

CONCLUSION

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