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Yemen Page |
Welcome to ElectionInfo.com's pages on Yemen
Official Name: Republic of Yemen
Capital: San’a
Area: 527,970 square kilometres ( 203,850 square miles )
Major cities (Population)
San’a 500,000 (1990 estimate)
Aden 294,430 (1988)
Population: 14,501,000 (1995 estimate)
Population growth rate: 5 per cent (1990-1995 average)
Type of government: Republic
Independence: Republic of Yemen was established 22 May 1990 with the merger of the Yemen Arab Republic (Yemen [Sanaa] or North Yemen) and the Marxist-dominated People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (Yemen [Aden] or South Yemen); North Yemen had become independent in November 1918 (from the Ottoman Empire) and South Yemen had become independent on 30 November 1967 (from the United Kingdom).
Constitution: 16 April 1991; amended 28 September 1994
Voting Rights: Universal at age 18
Government
Before unification in 1990, North Yemen was governed by a benevolent authoritarian regime dominated by the military, and South Yemen functioned as a socialist one-party state. Politics opened up with the creation of the Republic of Yemen in 1990, and the number of freely functioning parties, lobby groups, and communication outlets multiplied. There are now more than 40 political parties. For a 30-month transitional period, the unification regime was based on equal power-sharing between the General People’s Congress (GPC) and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), the former ruling parties of North Yemen and South Yemen, respectively. The open, hotly contested national election of April 1993 marked the end of the transitional period and yielded a coalition government consisting of the GPC, the YSP, and the conservative Islamic Reform Grouping (al-Islah). The 1993 election was the first multi-party election on the Arabian Peninsula, and the first in which women could vote. The vast majority of Yemenis participated.
The constitution adopted in 1991, which was similar to North Yemen’s 1970 constitution, provided for a 301-member elected legislature, called the Council of Deputies. In addition to its legislative tasks, the council would select a five-member Presidential Council and vote on the composition and programme of the cabinet. The Presidential Council would choose a president and vice president from its membership, and nominate the prime minister. The members of the Council of Deputies would be selected for five-year terms, as would the president and vice president.
In September 1994, at the end of the country’s civil war, the Council of Deputies voted to adopt major reforms to the unification constitution. The amended constitution of 28 September 1994 declared Sharia (Islamic religious law) to be the basis of all legislation and described the economy as market-based. The reforms also abolished the five-member Presidential Council, and stipulated that the president be elected by universal suffrage, with no one permitted to hold office for more than two terms.
Recent History
The Republic of Yemen was created in 1990 out of the peaceful unification of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). The YAR was called North Yemen, and the PDRY was called South Yemen, although South Yemen was actually less to the south than to the east and southeast of North Yemen. In May 1994 civil war broke out between the ruling powers of northern and southern Yemen, which had, even after unification, maintained separate armies and security forces, as well as their political differences. The fighting lasted more than two months and produced thousands of casualties, as well as major economic and infrastructural damage. It resulted in the defeat of southern secessionists and the survival of unified Yemen.
The discovery of oil in both Yemens (in the mid-1980s) holds out the prospect of economic development and an easier life for the people of Yemen.
Since 1990 the president has been Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former leader of North Yemen. Saleh was most recently re-elected in 1994, following Yemen's short civil war. When Saleh’s five-year term in office ends in 1999, the next president will be directly elected according to the terms of the amended constitution. From 1990 to May 1994, Ali Salem al-Beidh, the former top leader of South Yemen, served as the vice president of unified Yemen. Following the civil war, in which al-Beidh led the losing secessionist forces, Saleh replaced him with Major-General Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. Saleh also appointed a new cabinet composed of members of the GPC and al-Islah parties to replace the three-party coalition formed in 1993 that had included the YSP.
In February 1995 the governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia agreed to negotiate a settlement to their long-standing dispute over the border between the two countries. The agreement defused a potentially explosive situation, as small-scale fighting had already occurred in the region in the months prior to the signing.
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