Yemeni elections

Yemen goes to the polls tomorrow for Presidential elections.   These initially looked interesting because long-time President Ali Abdullah Saleh declared that he would not stand for re-election.  He changed his mind, of course. It's a common dilemma for Arab dictators - can he help it if the people love him so?   So now he's running as the candidate of change, another common stance for long-time Arab dictators who seem to see not a whit of irony in their campaigns for urgent reforms of the systems they personally built.   Once Saleh re-entered the race, it looked likely to become boring again. It hasn't really, though. 

This has been an unusually contentious election campaign, far more interesting than most of us expected.   It isn't just the assorted election rally stampedes and occasional violence.   It isn't even the extremely convenient uncovering of an "al-Qaeda plot" which - amazingly! - seems to have allegedly involved one of the bodyguards of the leading opposition candidate Faisal bin Shamlan.   It's that the opposition (including the Islamist party Islah) seems to have united behind a credible candidate, and a combination of Arab media coverage and international election monitors seem to be keeping things relatively straight.  Saleh's government is famously corrupt, and Yemenis - like most Arabs - are sick of the status quo and yearn for political change of whatever kind.   There's even a runaway hit pop song denouncing Saleh.  In response, Saleh has been fighting hard, holding large campaign rallies, reaching out to Islah's Islamist opponents, and even appearing on al-Jazeera for a lengthy grilling by Ahmed Mansour.

Saleh will almost certainly still win, of course - if all else fails, he's still got Diebold (Yemen Branch) to deliver the appropriate results.  He told al-Hayat yesterday that the opposition will experience a great defeat tomorrow, and I reckon he knows exactly what he's talking about.  I hope he loses, on general principles, but don't expect it.  I also wonder what the American response would be to his replacement by a coalition which includes a moderate Islamist party.   So why is the campaign so intense?

Couple of thoughts.  First, I think there's the general al-Jazeera effect which has turned the Arab public spotlight on a sequence of elections in the Arab world, casting them as part of an overall Arab narrative.  The relevant history for this election for the Arab public is not past Yemeni elections, it is the Egyptian elections and the Palestinian elections and the Kuwaiti Parliamentary elections and even the Iraqi elections. 

Second, Yemenis are thinking about the question of hereditary succession which is so important in the Egyptian context right now (in addition to the rarely articulated but I think pervasive sense that the hereditary successions in Syria and Jordan produced rather dim bulbs who are not coming close to filling the large army boots of their fathers;  and the Libyan case, where the jury seems to be out on Sayf al-Islam).   The idea has been circulating that Ali Abdullah's son Ahmed is, just by random chance, emerging as the most talented and brilliant man of his generation and will have to overcome the obstacle of being the long-time President's son to serve his nation.   This idea does not amuse Yemenis as much as it amuses me. 

Third, there's Saleh's withdrawal and re-entry in the race, which I think has energized a lot of people. When he withdrew, quite a few politicians started thinking about a post-Saleh future - and some of them didn't want to back down after he came back in.   His initial declaration raised expectations, and his re-entry just angered a lot of people and energized the opposition.

Finally, Saleh's on-again off-again dealings with the US, especially over the war on terror, aren't particularly popular.  Heck, his accusations that bin Shamlan's bodyguard was working with al-Qaeda (while most likely a cheap election stunt) might even help the opposition in some parts of the country!

At any rate, it's well worth watching - a really intense and hotly contested Arab election is good to see, whatever the limitations.  I'll be watching with interest anyway, and hope to start getting some input from real Yemen experts soon.   Beats talking about the Pope. 

Comments

[Barsawad]

Yes, we are casting out votes tomorrow! Not, only for a president - but electing legislative and local representatives too. It has been 'very interesting'! That's an undersatatement!

[Philip Grant]

An interesting analysis but I think we must always be careful not to assume that voters in any election, rigged or not, are perfectly rational. A Yemeni might hate Salih for all the reasons you outlined, and yet still prefer him to anyone else. When I was in Yemen earlier this year I had a friend like that, late twenties, very pious, educated, always criticising the government, who while certainly not actively involved in politics (and in fact heartily sick of it, in Yemen as in the wider Arab world) nonetheless described himself as an Islah supporter; yet I was struck once when discussing politics with him, just after Salih announced he was going to stand after all, by his vehemently insisting that this was good news for Yemen, as however bad Salih was, Yemenis were even more worried about what would come after him. You could summarise this as the "better the devil you know position". Admittedly this was back in late June, before the campaign had started, so things may have changed a lot in the interim, but I wonder how many Yemenis there are who are still thinking along these lines? I bet there are quite a few.

[Stacey]

Marc: One thing I think is worth mentioning re Islah's participation (leadership, really) of the opposition campaign is that Shaykh al-Ahmar jumped ship and endorsed the Prez. In the 1999 presidential election, Islah as a party endorsed Salih and there was no opposition to speak of. As an Islah-watcher, I've been waiting to see if their participation in the Joint Meeting Parties would fall apart over this election, and there is good reason to consider this a bit of a litmus test of the opposition's institutional durability. What I see, instead, is that the fissures in the party may be getting more pronounced. With people like Muhammed Qahtan and the party's "political directorate" heavily tied to Bin-Shamlan, and rival party leaders like al-Ahmar (Saleh's tribal buddy and Islahi speaker of parliament) backing the incumbent, Islah is either (a) covering all the bases, or (b) deeply divided. My money's on (c) all of the above.

Philip: I'm laughing because I literally had this conversation in my Comparative Politics class this morning...I don't see any problem in assuming that voters are rational in the pursuit of what they value. I do see a problem in assuming that all people value the same things. Clearly, some value stability, predictability, graft, the devil you know, whatever...

While I share Marc's dim hope that Salih loses tomorrow, my pragmatic side hopes that Bin-Shamlan makes a real enough showing to give the opposition a better shot next time around.