There is a semi-consensus that Yemen's incumbent president is the most favoured candidate in the country's upcoming elections, writes Nasser Arrabyee What percentage of the vote the opposition will win is the question most raised by independent observers while normal Yemenis watch an unusually exciting presidential campaign unfold between Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's present head of state, and his main rival, Faisal Bin Shamlan, the opposition alliance candidate. Elections are expected to take place 20 September and will decide the next seven-year term president. On Tuesday, in a pre- election campaign rally for Saleh, a stampede killed 41 and injured more than 50 others. Saleh was addressing a crowd in a small stadium in Ibb, 192km south of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Many of those attending, who were packed into the stadium, were seen carrying banners and posters with pictures of Saleh on them. Young people had been bused to the stadium by government authorities to attend the rally. Overcrowding and a lack of clearly marked exit signs contributed to the stampede, after people leaving the stadium collided with others entering it, officials said. Meanwhile, unlike previous elections, anxiety is running high, perhaps because the political system -- ruling and opposition -- is ill-prepared for a peaceful transfer of power. Three other candidates will vie with Saleh and Shamlan for the favour of more than nine million Yemeni voters, including four million women. Voters will also elect about 7,000 persons from around 20,000 candidates for local authority seats in local elections that are held simultaneously with presidential elections. Unlike during earlier elections, anxiety is running high. Perhaps the reason behind such feelings is that the whole political system -- ruling and opposition -- is not yet prepared for a peaceful transfer of power. Saleh, who is described by his party as the candidate of the whole nation, does not depend on campaigning rallies to reply to the barrage of accusations levelled at him by rival Shamlan. The latter routinely focuses on the present regime's totalitarianism, corruption in government, and the necessity of change as a means to rescue the country. "This election is a matter of difference between forwardness and backwardness, welfare and poverty, justice and injustice," Bin Shamlan said at one rally. For his part, Saleh is working hard to gain as much support as possible from tribal and religious figures from inside or outside Islah -- the largest opposition party and which leads the five- party opposition alliance, known as the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP). Chairman of the Supreme Board of Islah, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Hussein Al-Ahmar, announced Monday in remarks published in official media that Saleh would be his preferred candidate. Although Al-Ahmar underlined that this was his personal preference not his party's, this announcement will undoubtedly boost Saleh's standing. "Ali Abdullah Saleh is my candidate and he is acceptable by most of the people. There is no one in the arena but him, and better the devil you know than the devil you don't," said Al-Ahmar, head of Yemen's most influential tribe, Hashed -- the same tribe to which Saleh belongs. Sheikh Al-Ahmar is now receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia and will return only after the elections. While Al-Ahmar's comments could be seen as a ringing endorsement of the current president, he added: "I don't think the elections results will be fair, because all the state's resources are in the hands of President Saleh." Clerics, notably Salafis, who believe democracy is unIslamic, took the chance to blast the Islamic party Islah for accepting democracy. A Salafi religious sheikh released a fatwa saying it is not religiously permissible to compete with President Ali Abdullah Saleh. "To compete with the ruler is an illegitimate act, this is unIslamic, it is not eastern or Western democracy," Salafi scholar Abu Al-Hassan Al-Maribi, said at one of President Saleh's election rallies. Al-Maribi runs a Salafi school in Marib, east of the country. "All religious scholars are with President Ali Abdullah Saleh," he said in his address, which was broadcast by state- run television. Although such a fatwa contradicts the constitution and laws in effect which provide for a multi-party system, many mosque leaders -- especially Salafis -- call for "obeying the ruler" and standing by him. Meanwhile a war of words has opened. "How the secessionists and the forces of darkness came together?" Saleh openly wondered at one campaign rally -- a thinly veiled reference to the two largest opposition parties, the Socialist Party and Islah. Opposition leaders considered such remarks as recantations of democracy, or even early indications any peaceful transfer of power would be opposed. Mohamed Qahtan, JMP spokesman said: "the escalation in the speeches of [Saleh] is evidence that democracy is no more than make-up that can be removed by the heat of competition." In reply to accusations from Saleh that the JMP seeks to plunder the central bank, Qahtan showed journalists documents, including checks to the sum of more than three billion rials transferred to the ruling party's account last month, inferring money laundering. Later, official media quoted a bank official as saying the documents were forged. Amid rising tension, and claim and counter-claim, there have been repeated calls to keep 20 September, polling day, free from guns and violence. Observers also hope for an election that is free, fair and transparent. There may be some way to go yet, however, as opposition groups daily deface posters of running candidates and the political mudslinging marathon continues.
