In the Symposium Organized by the Future Studies Center, Al-Bayan and Yemen Times: HEATED DEBATE ON LOCAL ELECTIONS AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS RAISE CONTROVERSY [Archives:2001/07/Reportage]
The Future Studies Center, with the coordination of Yemen Times, and Al-Bayan Newspaper of the UAE, organized a symposium last Wednesday, 7 February 2001 entitled, “Local Council Elections and Constitutional Amendments.” Representatives of major political parties, politicians, diplomats, intellectuals and media representatives attended the symposium, which aimed at shedding light on the different viewpoints of political parties regarding local elections and the referendum on constitutional amendments scheduled to take place on the 20th of February.
The symposium was run by Walid Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf, Editor-in-Chief of Yemen Times along with Dr. Faris Al-Saqqaf, Chairman of the Future Studies Center, and included tense and heated debates and discussions between representatives from the ruling party, the People’s General Congress and other opposition parties.
The seminar started with a welcome speech by Walid Al-Saqqaf in which he stated that the objective of the event was to provide an opportunity for all parties to openly voice their stand regarding local elections and constitutional amendments. He stressed that Yemen Times was proud to sponsor and co-organize the seminar, which was in a transparent atmosphere that provided an opportunity to all parties to state their stand clearly and decisively, and it was also an opportunity for observers and interested diplomats and intellectuals to get a thorough idea of the viewpoints of the different parties. He concluded his speech by emphasizing that the seminar, with all its debatable points, no matter how diverse and different will be published in Yemen Times without any additions or omissions.
Then Dr. Faris Al-Saqqaf gave his opening speech saying, “On the 20th of this month, the local council elections, along with the referendum on constitutional amendments, will be taking place all over the country. Local council elections could be considered the latest democratic election game after the parliamentary and presidential elections. These local elections have come up very late, especially given that the constitution of the unified Yemen of 1990 included these elections, and that local authority law has been modified several times. The points of difference were deep, and were initially resembled in the philosophy of ruling power. However, they later concentrated on the debate whether certain administrative posts should be elected or appointed. The debate also focused on the level of authority of the local councils and how they will be financed.
Now, 10 years later, the country was surprised to see that a political decision to hold local council elections was taken. The overall view is that the authorities decided to hold the elections along with the referendum on constitutional amendments to prevent a low turnout in the referendum. The PGC was the first to demand the holding of the elections and referendum at this particular time claiming that this is a vital step for the sake of the national interest of the country. But this surprise decision was not welcomed by all political parties, but they later diverged in their stands, some in favor of, and some against the stand of PGC.
What is the stand and viewpoint of the different political parties regarding local elections and constitutional amendments? How well are the different parties prepared for the elections? Are there equal opportunities for the different political parties? Why are some parties taking part? Why are others boycotting? How will these two steps push our democratic process forward? These are some of the questions asked in this debate to seek the truth behind the local elections and the amendments, and to predict the future of the country given the current circumstances. The debate will take place among all political parties and authorities involved except for the Islah party and the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC) representatives, who had been invited but didn’t come for unknown reasons.”
The first speech was given by the ruling PGC party , represented by Yunis Haza’, a member of the political circle of the PGC and he explained the party’s views on why it is essential to hold the local council elections along with the constitutional elections. In his speech he said, “PGC has been continuously working on holding local council elections, but because of the first, second, and third coalitions that ruled the country since then, it was not possible to hold them until today. PGC’s domination of the political scene in the parliament has enabled it to go forward in preparing for the elections. As for why they are to be held along with the constitutional amendments, is to facilitate the referendum process, and there is no other reason other than that.”Ahmed Al-Sufi, Secretary of the Yemeni National Institute for Developing Democracy interrupted Haza’s speech by saying, “I believe that the only reason that constitutional amendments are being proposed is to give more authority to the President of the Republic. Is the president in competition with a presidential candidate so as to see himself in great need for the constitutional amendments? I think that the extra authority to be given will have a negative effect on democracy.”Yunis Haza responded by saying, “First of all, there seem to be some who think that when we talk about the president, then that means Ali Abdullah Saleh. The issue is not related to the president himself. If we are talking about constitutional amendments, then we are talking about any individual who will one day become president of Yemen. Unfortunately, some in the opposition see the constitution from a narrow prospective, as if they are only related to the president of the republic, even though the truth is the opposite. With the constitutional amendments, the president has abandoned many of his powers, especially that the amendments will no longer give authority to the president to make decisions during the parliament’s off-duty days, or between parliamentary sessions.
In relation to the extension of the presidential ruling period, then that is related to preserving the environment and maintaining cleanliness, which are also two important points in the constitutional amendments, which I believe the opposition should focus on as they have positive reflections. Many of the amendments help develop the electoral and referendum processes, and some limit the monopoly of some authorities, hence helping the democracy progress and gradually moving toward the two-chamber system. All of these are important issues that should be thought of before thinking about the extension of the periods of the president or parliamentarians.”
Dr. Faris Al-Saqqaf asked, “Mr. Ahmed Al-Kibsi, member of the permanent committee of the PGC. Why does the PGC say that the local council elections along with constitutional amendments are of vital importance for the national interest of our country?
In other words, what are the true justifications for the amendments?”
Ahmed Al-Kibsi replies, “First of all, constitutional amendments mean removing, adding, or modifying articles within the constitution. They are amendments that are seen as necessary due to the political experiences of the country. Whoever looks at the US constitutional amendments will notice that there are 26 amendments, and all were needed for the sake of the nation’s interest. As we are facing the challenges of globalization, we feel that there is significant importance in protecting the environment from pollution. Hence, we saw great importance in approving constitutional amendments related to the environment and the cleanliness of our country. If we don’t concentrate on this issue, we will be facing devastating effects in the future. These amendments are of great essence as they push the development of the political system and the emergence of a Shoura Council with specialized individuals, which in turn, will support the legislative authorities. But our problem in the third world is that we worship manuscripts and don’t want to change them. I believe that the current situation gives us no choice and forces us to change certain articles. The ones who are against the extension of the parliamentarians’ period are the parties that have no representation in the parliament. Hence, they hope to hold elections as soon as possible so as to secure seats in the parliament. The amendments are developed by humans, and so are the articles of the constitution.
As for the appointment of the governor, I believe it is best to select the person with the best expertise and knowledge to run this sensitive post as the people will not be able to select the most appropriate person.
We also support the amendments that give parliament the power that it has, not more. The parliament cannot carry out any executive action, hence it is not possible to state that it has the power for action, but it has the power for drafting and approving laws only. So it is in the best interests of the parliament to remove the phrase that says that the parliament has the power for action while the truth is that it has not as it only has the power to approve.”
Dr. Mohamed Al-Mikhlafi a prominent lawyer and a member of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) political office voiced his party’s opinion by saying, “I want to talk about the constitutional amendments related to the local council elections so as to link the two issues. It is obvious that article 143 of the constitution says that the heads of all administrative units, i.e., governor and province administrators, should be elected as they would be the heads of the local councils. Article 144 states that the local council is to be elected as a whole and not have some of its members elected and others appointed. This comes from a major article of the constitution, specifically article 4 that states the people’s sovereignty over the administrative affairs of the country. This sovereignty is represented by electing all the members of these councils so as to found a balance among the legislative and executive authorities due to the undeniable fact -you know well- that whoever is appointed by the authorities remains loyal to them. Hence, it is obvious that one of the constitutional amendments robs the people of Yemen of their right to elect the heads of the local councils and gives the right of appointing the governors to the executive authority. This is a strange case in which a council is being elected while the person in charge of it is appointed. This results in an unbalance between the legislative and executive authorities. In fact, the executive authority has dominated the situation from top to bottom. Hence, it is no surprise to see that the constitutional amendments came to justify the local council elections, which has caused chaos and confusion among many political parties. In my view, the objective of all of this is to found elections with no democratic basis, which will eventually lead to non-democratic traditions when electing local councils.
Here, I will focus on some of the measures taken so far. The election law’s article 15 openly states that any electoral process should be preceded by the construction and review of the tables of the candidates and electors. The review of the tables is being done by the same constructor of the tables, which is a clear violation of the elections law and does not serve the purpose of the review. Hence, I believe that any community that does not respect laws will definitely not respect democracy or improve it.
Another point is that articles 40 and 62 of the constitution give equal rights to all Yemenis, including political rights and the right to be represented in numbers relative to the size of population. This is the very thing that is not being fully implemented by the SEC. Here I would like to give two examples. The first is that the province of Sanhan -the hometown of president Ali Abdullah Saleh- had its share raised so as to have 6 more council members, while the province of Mansoura in Aden had its share lowered by 8 representatives. What the SEC has done is allocate representatives to provinces according to the number of registered electors in the election tables not according to population sizes. Hence, provinces were not divided into organized divisions but rather into electoral centers, which gave the parties that had previously forged lists of electors the right to take control of local councils by using imaginary names. It is therefore not surprising to find that some centers have 15 representatives, while others, which are mostly in southern governorates, have only one representative.
Despite all the black indications I mentioned, we as the YSP, will participate in the elections.”
The consultant of the Eritrean Embassy asked the PGC members during the debate an important question about the true grounds on which the decision to have the constitutional amendments was taken.
Dr. Faris Al-Saqqaf replied by saying that the PGC members had implicitly explained the reasons that ‘they think’ are enough to justify the national need for the amendments. He said, “the PGC representatives clearly justified the need for the amendments in the global challenges and changes in the political picture, etc.”
Lawyer Ahmed Al-Wadi’i, member of the Yemeni Lawyers Syndicate said in his speech, “Yemen has had 4 constitutions since unification. These were the constitution of the unified Yemen, the 92 constitution, the postwar constitution, and finally the constitution we are debating, which will transform the political system from a multi-ruling entity system to a single-ruling entity system. The latest amendments will no doubt cause a major change in the political reality in Yemen.
The amendments we are talking about are amendments to 17 articles, which is a huge change in number and in nature. Most of the amendments are changes related to legislative and executive authorities, which is the core of the constitution. Yemen, before unification and the emergence of the multi-party system went for more than 20 years without changing the constitution despite the succession of different authorities.”
The PGC then replied to the allegation in the speech of Dr. Najeeb Al-Awaj, Member of the Permanent Committee of the PGC who said, “The reasons behind the quick decision to hold the elections, is that parties during the last few years called for local elections, and when the PGC saw that it was possible to hold them, it approved them.
In regard to the amendments, we are not enforcing anyone to say “YES” to them, and everyone has the right to reject them in the referendum.”
Mr. Jarallah Omar, Deputy General Secretary of the YSP gave a long and comprehensive analysis of the stand of the YSP regarding both the local elections and amendments by saying, “The local authority law is an artificial law that is of no use. According to international experts who refused to consider the local authority law a true measure for local authority. A prominent international consultant from South Africa who worked as consultant for the UN for local affairs of South Asia, once said, “This law is no local authority or administration, but rather rationing centralization.” He also said that local councils according to the law are only consultation councils as they don’t decide anything, cannot give anything and cannot prevent anything. They only agree upon and support the central authority’s decisions. Hence, we are not dealing with local authorities, or even regular municipalities in Asian or African countries with emerging democracies. In fact, we hope that we could reach the level of democracy in these countries. This law gives us no authority, but rather the local councils, according to the law, are under the continuous threat of being dissolved if they do not abide by the instructions of the central authority. Hence, these local councils become entities in fear, not being feared as they are under total control and domination by the central authorities in terms of power and funds.
Coming to the financial side, as we know, there are no sections within the current 2001 budget allocated for the local councils. We, as the YSP, will still participate despite all this because we want to change this experience through our hard work and not through propaganda and statements. As for those in the PGC and the ones who justify the reason why governors are being appointed and not elected by saying that we are still a developing nation and the people cannot select the people to represent them efficiently in this post, I would like to ask a question. Is this nation qualified or not? If not, how can you give the nation the right to select the president of the republic and members of parliament, and not give it the right to select the governors or heads of administrative units. This only makes us conclude that the previously held elections were not serious at all. This also indicates that the traditional social system of today is the same outdated system as during the Ottoman Rule. As opposition, we will oppose this system and work to change it and bring true local administration to the country.
As for the constitutional amendments, no one from the PGC gave us a reasonable justification for them. Mr. Al-Kibsi of the PGC, who is one of the grandchildren of one of the constitution’s martyrs, Ahmed Al-Kibsi, did not provide us with a convincing justification for the amendments. Why the amendments? What are the articles that have been examined, seen to have failed, and chosen to be altered? What are the social groups that demanded the amendments? Who has been consulted in the amendments? Who discussed them? I am confident that many of the PGC members were surprised to hear about the amendments in the first place. I don’t want to put fellow friends at the PGC in a difficult situation, but I know many of them defended the amendments as a partisan duty. But in their special informal individual sessions they were asking themselves about the reasons and objectives for these amendments that they see no use for. Here, I demand that PGC be a political party, at least when the PGC becomes a true political party, democracy in Yemen will start making its first steps. But if the PGC stays as a cover for another authority, then our democracy will continue to deteriorate.
I repeat by asking, who was consulted and who was invited to discuss the constitutional amendments in the first place? If the PGC itself did not participate in the discussions, how in earth will other parties participate? The Islah party announced that it did not participate, and we had no idea about the amendments until they reached the parliament. Those who say that the political groups not represented in the parliament have no right to object as they boycotted the elections of 1997 may be partially correct. However, I know that there were parliamentarians with different viewpoints when the amendments were presented to the parliament, but they were not able do discuss them, and eventually the amendments were passed and approved the old Arab way in two or two and half hours only.
Can anyone of the present guests and listeners say that what I am saying is wrong? There is no doubt that the authorities were able to push the amendments into parliament and have them endorsed, but why are they preventing the people from expressing their views about them? Why are the authorities tearing all the posters that call upon the public to say “NO” to the amendments, while encouraging the posting of posters saying “YES”? Why are the national TV channels only supporting the viewpoint of “YES” to the elections while ignoring the other viewpoint, even though we are paying taxes for the channel?
Coming to those who claim that the USA itself made 26 constitutional amendments, I say, these amendments were given so as to promote human rights and freedom of expression. They were added to enhance the democratic process, and the first amendment itself alone is enough to refute the PGC’s allegations as it has given the media and press an almost unlimited freedom.
We all know that one of the main reasons behind the resignation of Dr. Faraj bin Ghanem was because he demanded that local authorities have more control over the resources services and funds of their respective provinces.” More Shocking Statements in Part II on next week’s issue..
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