Voter registration continues despite disputes

Yemen’s process of voter registration, which began last week, is progressing smoothly despite problems in 40 registration centres due to tribal disputes, according to officials at the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendums (SCER). “So far, voter registration is going well, although there are some difficulties that we’re trying to overcome,” said Abdu al-Janadi, head of the SCER’s information department. “Everything has been done in a transparent manner, although we’ve received complaints from the ruling party, the People’s General Congress (PGC) and the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) opposition coalition.” According to al-Janadi, two people were killed on Saturday in the governorate of Ibb, some 160km south of Sana’a, which has held up the registration process there. He said the killing, which took place at a voter-registration centre, was the result of tribal feuding. “Registration was halted in about 40 centres due to tribal disputes,” said al-Janadi. “We’re contacting the local authorities to sort out these problems. We’re also trying to persuade tribes in the Thamar governorate [10km south of the capital] to allow the registration process to continue.” Some of these problems, he said, were related to tribal demands for development assistance. Al-Janadi added that over 366,000 citizens had registered to vote so far, a number that he expects to peak at about one and a half million. In the meantime, thousands of civil society volunteers are monitoring and reporting on the registration phase of local and presidential elections, which are scheduled to be held in September. Since 1990, Yemen has been considered by donor nations to be one of the few Arab states taking concrete steps towards democratisation. This assessment is based mainly on three successful past parliamentary elections, held in 1993, 1997 and 2003. In the last election, the ruling GPC won a landslide victory, clinching 226 out of a total of 301 elected seats. Meanwhile, disputes over electoral reform have dragged on for weeks between the JMP and the SCER. The opposition accuses the SCER – which is dominated by the PGC – of acting fraudulently, and has refused to be represented on its committees. As a result, the election commission excluded all political parties from the process, seeking instead the help of civil servants to run the exercise. “The SCER has violated the Constitution and the law by excluding political parties from the registration process,” read an open letter from the JMP to President Ali Abdallah Saleh. “This will… lead to negative consequences that will bring the legitimacy of the elections, and their results, into question.” “The dialogue was a waste of time,” said JMP spokesman Mohammed Qahtan. “The ruling party’s refusal of our initiative for political reform is a signal that it isn’t willing to conduct real reforms.” Qahtan added that the opposition was prepared to throw its support behind Saleh if he adopted their recommendations for reform. Last November, the JMP proposed changing the current presidential system into a parliamentary system in order to reduce the powers of the executive.