Second Yemeni Parliamentary Election Praised by International Observers

by William A. Rugh

The parliamentary election which took place in Yemen on April 27 was only the second one in that country's history, the first having been held four years ago. Skeptics doubted that a well-armed tribal society whose people had little experience going to the polls would be able to hold a truly democratic election. They also argued that political leaders not used to submitting themselves to a secret ballot would surely find ways to subvert the process. They said that the political parties, established only a few years earlier, would not be allowed to function without interference from the army and other state authorities.

Another obstacle to democratic elections seemed to be the legacy of north-south tensions. North and South Yemen were only united in 1990, and in 1994 engaged in a brief but bloody civil war. Although the North won, some southern resentment remained. A group of southern political leaders living in exile with Saudi and other foreign support vowed to continue the struggle. Even the southern-based Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which won all of the southern seats in the 1993 election and was the third largest party in parliament, harbored resentments and expressed criticism of the regime loaded with grievances against the north. Wouldn't voting exacerbate these tensions and split the country again? In fact, seeking to dramatize the split, the YSP on March 5 suddenly declared a complete boycott of the 1997 election, charging registration fraud, and called on all Yemenis to stay away from the polls.

This left the General People's Congress (GPC) of President Ali Abdallah Saleh, and the Islamic Reform Party (Islah) as the two major parties contending for seats, alongside several small and rather insignificant ones. Both major parties were coalitions of varied interests. Islah in particular combined conservative tribal elements, merchants, and religious leaders, a few of whom were hard-line Islamists. Indeed, the lack of fundamental ideological differences between GPC and Islah had allowed these two parties to join in a coalition government. It also had permitted them, in preparation for the 1997 election, to make no-competition "coordination agreements" in about half of the 301 electoral districts to provide safe seats for each other. Some critics called this undemocratic, although others pointed out that such deals also take place in countries with long democratic traditions.

Friendly "Independents"

In fact, these safe-seat deals collapsed soon after they were reached, as each party arranged for friendly "independents" to run in districts where they had promised not to run their own party candidates. Thus they avoided violating formal terms of the agreement, but revealed a basic characteristic of Yemeni politics: tactical coalitions of disparate elements and independent-minded individuals are easily made and just as easily broken.

The contest therefore essentially became the GPC against Islah. Islah accused the incumbent president's GPC of corruption and secularism, and said that it unfairly used the army to intimidate candidates and voters. Islah also charged that GPC planned to move army personnel, who could vote wherever they were stationed, to closely contested districts to tip the balance in the GPC's favor. The GPC candidates, in turn, feared that Islah was making unfair use of the mosques, and of its armed militias, and that Islah tribal elements were receiving extra election subsidies from neighboring Saudi Arabia.

During the year-long preparations for the election, critics charged that the outcome was being pre-cooked, and they filed thousands of specific claims of registration fraud. But a Supreme Election Commission, established by law and consisting of a balanced group of citizens from all political parties, investigated these complaints systematically, and found the vast majority of them to be unfounded.

Critics also said that powerful people supporting the regime were suggesting in a threatening manner that certain opposition candidates withdraw from the contest. In fact a number of candidates did withdraw before election day. It was impossible to know, however, how many of them did so out of fear of reprisals and how many simply decided that they had no chance to win. By election day many districts remained hotly contested, particularly because the safe-seat deal between the two leading parties had broken down.

In the event, the process on election day and during vote-counting seemed to be fair and democratic.

Elaborate arrangements had been made to ensure fairness during balloting and vote-counting. The Supreme Election Commission had a legal mandate to enforce democratic rules and manage the process at each polling place.

In addition, non-governmental organizations geared up to assist in supervising the process. One of them, the Arab Democratic Institute, assisted by the USAID-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Washington, DC, had experience in monitoring the 1993 election. For 1997 it recruited 11,500 volunteers who were set to watch at every one of the 301 election districts throughout the country. Another NGO, the Election Monitoring Committee, had recruited 7,200 volunteers to act as watchdogs; it was headed by a prominent intellectual and publisher who had previously been jailed for criticizing the authorities, and who was determined to help advance Yemeni democracy.

Several hundred foreign observers also were on hand. An international delegation of 34 observers sponsored by the NDI and led by Chester Atkins, a former Democratic member of the U.S. Congress from Massachusetts, was there. The NDI had been present at the 1994 election and at that time had helped the Arab Democratic Institute get started. The Europeans had their own monitors in Yemen for the election, and some private Americans familiar with Yemen were invited as well.

As one of the latter, I attended three political rallies in Sana'a on the day before the election, and watched as young people paraded, the candidates' supporters made speeches, and enthusiastic crowds chanted slogans. On election Sunday I spent the entire 12 hours during which polls were open visiting polling places in the mountain towns of Hajjah and Amran, nearby villages, and several in the capital city of Sana'a. On Monday I spent most of the day observing ballot-counting in eight different Sana'a districts. At every stop my observer credentials gave me unimpeded access to the facility, and inside I questioned voters, Supreme Election Committee members, NGO monitors and official party representatives.

At every rally, polling place, and ballot- counting station I saw, the voters, as well as the SEC members and the candidates' representatives, appeared to be enthusiastically participating in a process that they regarded as serious and meaningful. Voters lined up hours before the 8 a.m. opening time at polling stations in towns and villages, standing patiently in dusty or muddy school courtyards waiting to cast their ballots. Inside the building, a separate room was designated for each of the several ballot boxes, and in each room a three-member bipartisan election committee, watched carefully by a row of 5 to 10 candidate representatives, carefully controlled the balloting in strict accordance with the election law and regulations, ensuring that it was done properly. They made sure each voter understood how to mark the paper ballot behind a screen and deposit it in the box. They arranged for illiterate voters to take a friend or an acceptable committee member into the booth to help if they wished. I watched one illiterate elderly man emerge from the booth after marking his ballot with the help of one committee member, and ask that a second member return to the booth with him to check to be sure the first had not cheated him by marking the wrong name (he hadn't). He knew quite well how to prevent fraud while preserving secrecy.

In this conservative society, where most Yemeni women are veiled and completely covered in black except for their eyes, polling places generally arranged separate ballot boxes for female voters, supervised entirely by women. These women took their responsibilities seriously.

Voters lined up hours before the 8 a.m. opening time at polling stations.

I witnessed one incident in which a female party representative protested to the district election commissioner, in the presence of the governor, that a committee person was cheating illiterate voters. The commissioner investigated and found the charge baseless. During the discussion, the accused committee woman drew herself up and berated the governor for becoming involved, saying she knew her duty and the rules while he did not. He apologized and backed off. Female voter turnout was much greater in the urban areas than in the villages, but nationally it was a solid 30 percent of all voters, up from 19 percent in 1993.

Voter turnout was quite good. Approximately 4.6 million registered, and 2.8 million (41 percent of all eligible voters) went to the polls. The Yemeni Socialist Party miscalculated badly by boycotting the election. The GPC won a solid majority.

Vote counting was very long and tedious. In each of the 301 electoral districts throughout the country, the election committee and representatives of all the participating candidates, plus NGO observers

often totaling 20 to 30 people sat down around a table as soon as the polls closed, and began counting the ballots. Each box, containing perhaps 350 ballots, took up to an hour or more to count, because the committee chairman had to read each ballot aloud and show it to everyone. With 50 to 85 boxes to count, some districts took up to four days, around the clock. Participants took short breaks to eat and sleep, often next to the unopened boxes to ensure security. Their patience, stamina and serious dedication were extraordinary. I asked some participants why they did not use voting machines and computers instead of paper ballots, and they said they would not trust such a system because it could be tampered with. They wanted a transparent process.

Fears of police and military personnel affecting the vote turned out to be largely unfounded. They kept order at the polling places but they apparently behaved properly. Some Islah party representatives worried that security personnel might pass information during the vote count to GPC candidates outside. In one case at district no. 236 in the village of Hamdan, that did happen. When the GPC candidate, an army colonel, appeared to be losing, his soldiers surrounded the counting hall in a threatening manner. But armed Islah civilians quickly appeared and then special election security arrived and dispersed them all without incident. I watched one election committee in a hotly contested Sana'a district strictly exclude all soldiers from the counting hall but in another, quieter contest, I saw soldiers in the hall observing the counting closely without interfering in any way. There was one major incident at the Abyan voting district when a security guard apparently went berserk and killed seven election committee members during the night before the polling place opened. In Marib, a fight broke out between supporters of opposing candidates and one person was killed.

Was there fraud? Perhaps some, but it did not appear to be widespread. Duplicate voting was prevented by the requirement that each voter dip his or her thumb in indelible ink. Voting by underage and "deceased participants" was prevented by a double registration system requiring valid identification by documents or witnesses.

Careful registration in fact caused another problem. The requirement of double registration led to a situation where more than one million of the 4.6 million registered voters did not go to the trouble of picking up their voting cards. At the last minute, literally on the eve of the voting, election officials and party leaders agreed to allow registered voters without cards to vote anyway if they could identify themselves. This solution still left some registered voters disenfranchised because Yemen does not have a civil registry or a universal ID system, and few have drivers' licenses or other documents to prove their identity. Officials are now talking about implementing a civil registry to avoid this problem next time.

Yemenis say quite rightly that their democracy, now only seven years old, is still in its childhood. They demonstrated on April 27, however, that their electoral process already is working well.