Polls Open in Yemen Elections

27/04/2003| IslamWeb

Yemenis went to the polls for the third parliamentary elections since reunification in 1990 amid fears of violence in the impoverished republic regarded by Washington as a haven of Islamic militancy. Polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0500 GMT) and were due to close at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT) Sunday. On the eve of the vote, President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned against any repetition of the violence that has marred previous polls.

"I hope Sunday's elections pass off safely and peacefully," he told a rare press conference at the converted warehouse headquarters of the Supreme Commission for Election and Referendum (SCER).

The president called for polls to be "violence-free and a day without weapons," in reference to the heavily armed Yemeni population that holds an estimated 60 million weapons among some 20 million people.

The electoral process was temporarily halted last week in a constituency 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Sanaa after a failed assassination attempt by a candidate for the main Islamist opposition Al-Islah party on the governor, a member of Saleh's ruling General People's Congress (GPC).

A Sanaa-based Western diplomat said that while the situation was seemingly calm, there were still a "number of potential flashpoints in Sanaa and particularly Taiz," 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of the capital.

A total of 1,396 candidates are standing, 991 from the country's 22 political parties and 405 independents.

Yemen was the scene of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and a 2002 attack on a French supertanker. Washington has established a counterterrorism force just across the strategic Bab al-Mandab seaway in Djibouti.

PHOTO CAPTION

Yemenis go to the polls in two days for the third parliamentary elections since reunification in 1990 amid government accusations that Islamist opposition parties have links with terror groups(AFP/Khaled Fazaa)