The suspense slowly escalates in Yemen's election campaign as five candidates have passed the first obstacle to becoming the country's next president, reports Nasser Arrabyee from Sanaa Five Yemenis are going to vie for the president's office in the upcoming September elections after the Parliament has given the final constitutional okay for them in Monday's joint session of the two chambers, the House of Representatives (HR) and the Shura Council (SC), on 24 July. A relatively strong competition, however, is expected to take place only between President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Faisal Bin Shamlan, the candidate of the alliance of the five main opposition parties -- known as the Joint Meeting Parties (JMPs). The third candidate, Yassin Abdu Said, the deputy minister of labour and social affairs, represents small opposition parties seen as loyal to the ruling party. The last two independent candidates are expected to weaken the opposition alliance of JMPs as they (the two independents) belong to the first and second largest opposition parties, more specifically, Islah and Socialist. The Parliament voted for the five out of the 46 applicants who wanted to be candidates for the president's post. President Ali Abdullah Saleh for the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) won 237 votes; Faisal Bin Shamlan for the JMPs won 51 votes; Ahmed Al-Majeedi, the socialist independent candidate, won 33; Yassin Abdu Said, candidate for 12 small opposition parties -- none of them represented in the Parliament -- won 28 votes; and Fathi Al-Azab, the Islah independent candidate, won 22 votes. It is surprising that Bin Shamlan only won 51 votes, given the fact that the JMPs have 67 seats in both chambers of Parliament, the HR and SC. The JMPs consist of five opposition parties, among which the Islah Party has 53 members in Parliament -- 46 in the HR and seven in the SC; the Yemen Socialist Party has 10 members -- seven members in the HR and three in the SC; and the Unionist Nasserite Party has four members -- three in the HR and one in the SC. The other two parties in the alliance, the Federation of the Popular Forces Party and Al-Haq Party, are not represented in the Parliament. The vice chairman of the GPC block in the HR, Yaser Al-Awadhi, said before Monday's vote that "the GPC has decided to give Bin Shamlan some votes in fear of the JMPs not voting for him." GPC has 331 members in Parliament, 239 in the 301-seat HR and 92 in the 111-seat SC. Furthermore, chairman of the GPC block in the HR Sultan Al-Barakani said that his party would vote for Yassin Abdu Said and Ahmed Al-Majeed, apart from Saleh. Some MPs considered the GPC supporting candidates other than Saleh as an attempt to affect the JMPs' popularity. Others defended the MPs' right to give recommendations to whoever they liked. 378 MPs voted, meaning that 34 were absent from the joint session of parliament, which has 412 members. At the end of the joint session the Parliament decided to give 25 million rials from the state's treasury to each of the five candidates in order to finance their election campaign. The sum is very little by the local standards. Candidates must win at least five per cent of the MPs' votes in order to gain the Parliament's approval to run for the presidency. Amongst the applicants who did not receive sufficient votes, five votes went to three candidates, two of which were women. Rashida Al-Quiali got three votes, and Thekra Ahmed and Abdu Makbool Al-Saykal each won one vote. The remaining 38 applicants received no votes. Two cards were cancelled as null and void. Now that the bulk of the applicants are out of the election process, the race for the presidency will only become more competitive as September approaches.
