Yemen’s transitional process is unique, not only because it is the “only negotiated, transparent and participatory political transition in the Arab world,” according to Amat Al-Alim Alsoswa, a member of the National Dialogue Conference. But also because of the unusually high proportion of women representatives.

“It remains to be seen if women’s access to and participation in political, economic and civic spheres will improve in the long run,” writes Amina Semlali, a human development specialist for the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region:

Jamal Benomar, United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Yemen, stressed that in order to make the exchanges meaningful, various factions – political, tribal and regional of both genders – would need to participate. As Yemen’s Minister for Human Rights, Hooria Mashoor, said: “No-one can marginalize them (the women) now; they are now moving onwards.”

The dialogue is also addressing secessionist pressures, and this week an influential Houthi leader affirmed that he remains committed to the process.

Despite current optimism, large segments of the population remain skeptical, while others strongly reject the process, according to Danya Greenfield,  the deputy director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, and Hazim Al-Eryani, a research intern at the Center:

Some have shunned it as political theater, while others argue that the Dialogue will fail to address the major issues. The most important faction, however, are the separatist Herak groups that demand an independent Southern state and do not see the dialogue as an avenue to achieve their goals. The Dialogue preparatory committee made great efforts to include Southern representatives, but as Yemeni analyst Fatima Abo Alasrar notes, “[it was unable] to capture the essence of the street in its selection. The dichotomy between the street movement, which is calling for secession, and the National Dialogue, which is contemplating federalism, should be worrying.”

“This growing disconnect risks derailing the entire process, and worse, could spark the eruption of significant and widespread violence as the central government continues its heavy-handed tactics to suppress dissent in the South,” Greenfield and Eryani caution.

Among the delegates participating in the dialogue sits Nobel laureate Tawakkol Karman, a leading civil society activist who helped spark the 2011 massive protests against the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Karman began her career as an activist around 2005, writes Jeffrey Gedmin, President and CEO of the Legatum Institute:

“I learned at home growing up,” she tells me, “you don’t wait for solutions, you go out and find them.”

As chair of the group Women Journalists Without Chains [supported by the National Endowment for Democracy], she fought routinely to get dissidents out of prison — that is, when the mother of three wasn’t in jail herself. In 2006 Karman started an SMS campaign that reached 200,000 people across the country.

Karman (left) is a journalist, an advocate of human rights (a labor of love shared by her husband), and a visionary. She states repeatedly in interviews that she wants democracy, rule of law, and western-style human rights for Yemen. Is she realistic about the future? As she described her goals for the planet in her Nobel acceptance speech, she asked at one point, “Am I dreaming?” (Imagination seems to run in the family; her brother Tariq is a poet.) 

“To fully understand the significance of the role of women and the challenges that they had to overcome, it is necessary to understand what it means to be born a woman in Yemen,” writes World Bank analyst Semlali:

Female illiteracy runs at 70 percent, double the rate of men. Due either to a poor health system or a lack of services, an average of eight women die prematurely every day. There is no minimum legal age for marriage - when girls as young as 10 are married off, their young bodies are often not able to handle the birth process soon thereafter. They perish. Women raise children, cook, clean, tend the land and livestock - yet only seven percent earn a wage. In a country where almost every step a woman takes is circumscribed by rules and restrictions, the revolution created a unique opportunity to address Yemen’s gender gap – one of the main drivers of the country’s enduring underdevelopment.

“During the revolution, secularist and Islamist women alike spoke in a determined voice showing that the fight for their rights was not just for the sake of it. Rather, they engaged as citizens for the long-term good of their country as a whole,” she notes. “And there are plenty of socio-economic arguments to back up their demands for female civic, political and economic inclusion, one of them being that a country’s productivity can drastically increase as gender equality increases, according to the World Development Report on Gender 2012.”

But Hariri center analysts Greenfield and Eryani express the concern that “in addition to secessionist sentiment and lack of genuine popular support among Southerners, there is another structural dilemma” with the process:

 The transitional phase rests on the success of the Dialogue, yet the framework requires progress on two parallel processes: a dialogue that is aimed at building the foundation of a new state, and a state-restructuring process that is led by a weak and ineffective state. For the former to succeed, the state must build the necessary foundation and provide political backing for dialogue decisions to be absorbed by official institutions and accepted by the public. For the latter to succeed, the Dialogue must set the course for state restructuring and renegotiate the relationship between state and citizen. Thus, Yemen faces a Catch-22 where the Dialogue requires the support of a currently weak state to succeed. State capacity has become both a precondition for and a measurement of success.

“Both of these structural issues could be at least partially mitigated if the right steps are taken at the right time,” they contend:

For the South, President Abdrabo Mansour Hadi needs to immediately implement as many of the eleven points recommended by the Southern working group. Hadi did establish two committees to deal with issues of confiscated lands and dismissed servicemen and civil servants, and while some progress has been made, expedited implementation will be an important signal. This would go a long way in demonstrating a real commitment—and not just lip service—to address the legitimate grievances of Southerners. It is confounding why so little has been done on this front in the fourteen months since Hadi’s election—when so much rides on the Dialogue’s success—and why the security services continue to exacerbate an already delicate situation.

As for redefining the state-citizen relationship, significantly more engagement should be made with the general population about the Dialogue’s aims and how ordinary Yemenis can contribute to what should be a national reconciliation and rebuilding process not only limited to five hundred sixty-five people. 

RTWT

Check out Yemen updates with the invaluable CIPE Yemen Digest here.

“We are starting a new phase,” Nobel peace laureate Tawakkol Karman recently told crowds at Sana’a’s Change Square, expressing a sentiment that’s come to be shared by leading analysts.

“Maybe the most unique post-revolutionary political process happening in any country experiencing an Arab awakening is in poor, fractured, water-starved Yemen,” says a prominent commentator.

“What Yemen is doing is the only way any Arab awakening state can hope to make a stable transition to democracy,” says The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman:

In its own messy way, Yemen is doing what all the other Arab awakening countries failed to do: have a serious, broad-based national dialogue, where the different political factions, new parties, young people, women, Islamists, tribes, northerners and southerners are literally introducing themselves to one another in six months of talks — before they write a new constitution and hold presidential elections.

Most Yemenis appear to agree, according to a recent opinion poll from the National Democratic Institute, as a majority believes the country is headed in the right direction, though a slim majority in the south disagrees.

“I was struck by a level of optimism that I hadn’t seen for many years,” said NDI MENA director Les Campbell, following a recent trip.

“You want to be a little bit careful because you know it can fall apart, but there is this kind of moment that can be captured,” said Campbell of the optimism he observed toward the dialogue process.

The dialog is also addressing a number of profound issues, including the core questions of statehood and national identity.  

It is a cause for optimism that Yemenis, some of whom were recently pointing guns at one another, have been able to enter the dialogue, says Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, a National Dialogue delegate and former Human Rights Minister.

But she remained concerned that the Southern issue could lead to the state’s disintegration if outstanding issues of discrimination are not addressed, she told a recent meeting of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East (right).

“The dialogue is possible because of the gradual (and messy) way Yemen’s awakening played out,” writes The Times’ Friedman:

It started in 2011 with youth-led protests that escalated into near civil war and a government breakdown until then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh handed power to a transitional government. Saleh’s party and his followers, along with the biggest opposition bloc, Islah, Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood, still retained influence. There was no “de-Baathification” or “de-Mubarakization” in Yemen — but much more of a “no-victor-no-vanquished.”

No party was absolutely “defeated,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Mohy al-Dhabbi. It gave everyone a stake in the democracy transition and “allowed for everyone to give concessions.”

RTWT

More than 500 representatives of Yemen’s political parties and civil society today started a UN-backed dialogue for reconciliation with the aim of drafting a fresh constitution and preparing for free and fair elections in February 2014.

But the talks are being boycotted by southern separatists and by the country’s best-known civil society activist.  

“We are here by the thousands to reject the dialogue as it is an issue of northerners and those southerners who are involved in it do not represent the people,” activist Khaled Junaidi, told the AFP news agency.

Nobel Peace laureate Tawakul Karman (above) is also boycotting the talks in protest at the presence of officials loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh during his 33-year rule.

“I will not participate in the dialogue, due to the obvious imbalance in the representation of the youths, women and civil society groups and the participation of people who have the blood of the revolution youth on their hands,” she told AFP.

“This was not the dialogue we had called for. We will work outside the dialogue to press the transitional government and president to achieve our demands including the reunification of the army, the release of detainees, and a probe into the crackdown” on anti-Saleh protesters in 2011.

While some civil society groups will join the dialogue to address challenges to a genuinely inclusive transition, others share Karman’s concern that Saleh loyalists may sabotage the process, said Mohamed Mikhlafi, the Minister of Legal Affairs.

“Saleh’s supporters are organized in militant groups that considerably influence the flow of events in Yemen, and they insist that he should stay in the country even after the uprising,” he said.

The former president will also attend the sessions and his presence typifies the obstacles to reforming state institutions, especially the security apparatus, a precondition for addressing the southern insurgency.  

“The presence of Saleh stops prospects of transformation and restructuring of the military and police bodies themselves,” Mikhlafi said. “The trouble caused by Saleh’s loyalists within all state institutions leaves us no time to map out a clear roadmap for other severely-deteriorating matters, and the southern crisis in one of those.”

While the country’s politicians have been dragging their feet over the transition, Yemeni civil society has grown increasingly vibrant, says Gabool Al-Mutawakel, co-founder of the Youth Leadership Development Foundation, and a former a Reagan-Fascell fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.

But “after countless conversations in Sanaa over the past week” about the dialogue, analyst Danya Greenfield identifies “some worrisome dynamics that should be noted in order to increase its chances for success,” writing in Foreign Policy:

• There is a perception that the National Dialogue is being driven by an international agenda, particularly in the way it was constructed (not including tribal representatives and religious authorities), the allocation of representation (decision made by U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar) and some of the topics proposed for discussion (good governance, the environment, and child marriage). Among Yemenis sensitive to interference by outside powers, this is a particularly salient issue. ……Finding the appropriate balance will require a nuanced approach on the part of the United Nations, World Bank, Europeans, United States, and other supportive parties.
• Many Yemenis express concern that the National Dialogue is merely an exercise among political and social elites, established families, and power brokers that is largely being followed by people in Sanaa, but not the rest of the country. In a nationwide survey conducted by an international firm in January, 52 percent of respondents across the country had not heard of the National Dialogue. When asked what President Hadi’s priority should be, 40 percent answered corruption, 38 percent answered the economy, and only 7 percent answered the National Dialogue. …….
• The allocation of seats is heavily tilted toward political parties and existing elites who will likely dominate the dialogue. Although a percentage of seats were allocated for independent figures, the parties ended up playing a large role in the selection of those delegates as well. While creating strong political parties is generally an objective for a healthy, well-functioning democratic system, in this case, with many entrenched interests seeking to perpetuate the status quo, it risks leading to the marginalization of women, youth, and non-affiliated independent delegates. Ensuring that these voices are not drowned out by stronger and better organized political party representatives will be essential for the success of the dialogue …….
• Some expect that the key decisions will be made outside the margins of the dialogue among Yemen’s primary power brokers and that all this dialogue activity is just for show. The question is whether the dialogue will actually be a meaningful forum to resolve the most divisive issues, or just a sideshow to pacify the international community and revolutionary activists clamoring for change. This will depend largely on the previous two factors and to what degree Hadi provides leadership to open space for genuine discussion and debate that leads to decision-making processes inside the dialogue structure.

“Yemen is no stranger to national dialogues, and many Yemenis will boast that there is a tradition and culture of dialogue and consensus-building not present in other Arab countries facing similar challenges,” writes Greenfield, the deputy director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council:

That may be true, but the list of issues to address would be a heavy load for any country — let alone one that is divided by deep political and economic cleavages, wracked with poverty and unemployment, and struggling to maintain security with separatist violence and extremism in various forms. Despite the obvious obstacles ahead, there is great opportunity in this moment. And hopefully next March 18 will be the anniversary of an important milestone in Yemen’s democratic process.

RTWT

For further background, check out the invaluable Yemen Digest, an initiative of the Center for International Private Enterprise, one of the core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group

“Nearly every news article on Yemen begins with a detailed laundry-list of challenges the country faces on a daily basis (violent separatism in the South, humanitarian crises, unemployment); it is far more difficult to paint a positive picture of progress in a troubled land with deep political cleavages,” says a leading analyst.

“However, in the world of glass half-empty vs. half-full interpretations of Yemen’s transition, it warrants acknowledging when there actually is some forward momentum,” writes Danya Greenfield, deputy director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council:

President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi just reached the one-year mark in his presidency, and although he inherited a complicated morass of issues to untangle, including the ongoing presence of former President Saleh, Yemen is certainly in better shape now than it was twelve months ago, and is slowly heading in the right direction. At the risk of overstating the gains made and underemphasizing the significant shortcomings, it is worth highlighting reasons for optimism.

“Yemen has never had a dialogue that has encompassed this many factions, [but] it would be unwise to assume that inclusiveness guarantees success,” Yemeni researcher Sama’a Al-Hamdani writes for Fikra Forum:

Dialogues have been part of Yemen’s political history for years, with questionable results….If Yemen’s history has taught us anything, it is that dialogues are a last resort; they function primarily on a symbolic level. In fact, dialogues have almost been precursors for disasters to come, especially if the product of the dialogue upsets a faction of the participants. The dialogue will essentially continue for lack of a better plan. In pushing for dialogue, Yemen and its international allies did not anticipate alternative scenarios in the case of the dialogue’s potential failure.

Civil society groups are clearly wary of a resumption of hostilities.

“We don’t want to be pulled back to the past and its conflicts,” said Tawakkol Karman (above), Yemen’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

“The president does not have the power. He is not in control of the security of the country,” she contends. “In reality, Ahmed Ali is still heading the Republican Guards, and Ali Moh­sen is still in control of the 1st Armored Division.”

While the country’s politicians have been dragging their feet, Yemeni civil society has grown increasingly vibrant, writes Gabool Al-Mutawakel, co-founder of the Youth Leadership Development Foundation, and a former Reagan-Fascell fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.

“Positive civil and political youth activism has been the most rewarding result of the Yemeni uprising of 2011,” she writes for Common Ground. “Individual activism, youth initiatives and the participation of youth in new political parties have introduced fresh approaches and perspectives to Yemen’s civil and political arenas.” 

The essential Yemeni Digest links to an article asking, Can Hadi hold Yemen together?

Hadi’s generally praised steps toward restructuring Yemen’s military have been overshadowed by continued uncertainty over the fates of the country’s most powerful military leaders. Charged with restoring security and stability to Yemen, the transitional government has been paralyzed by partisan gridlock, leading many Yemenis to dismiss it as ineffective. Meanwhile, across the country, Yemenis continue to buckle under the stagnant economy. And with the central government’s hand still weak, others, from Al Qaeda-linked fighters to rebels based in the far north, have proved eager to fill the power vacuum.

“This Yemeni experience does not mean that the current dialogue is doomed; it means that a lot more effort is required and powerful players must be willing to make painful concessions,” argues Al-Hamdani, who writes on the blog Yemeniaty.com:

Rather than gratifying the international community on a superficial level, real democratic foundations must take root among the national actors for the sake of the Yemeni people. Those who are invested in peace understand that Yemen has no choice but to move forward for the success of the dialogue. With the dialogue starting on March 18, time is limited. President Hadi and his government must do more to ease tensions with the Southern Hirak and the youth in order to enable the best possible environment for negotiations to occur. As dialogue participants come to the table, they must be aware of what is at stake: should the dialogue fail, Yemen will have no way out.

Hadi and his government face serious challenges, “but some are within his control, like authentic and consistent outreach to the Southerners, open and transparent communication with the Yemeni people, and appointment of qualified technocrats in the government rather than selection based on political party affiliation,” writes Greenfield:

The president is blessed with near unanimous support from the United Nations, the United States, Europe, the GCC, Russia, and others—a fate that is unmatched anywhere else in the Arab world. But international interest will fade over time if Yemen does not deliver, and it would be a tragedy not to leverage this groundswell of support among those rooting for Yemen’s success.

RTWT

Photo: Human Rights Watch

The agreement brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for political transition in Yemen calls for a National Dialogue Conference to help the country’s leaders develop consensus for draft constitutional reforms and prepare for elections in 2014.

During the past year, the transition has faced considerable challenges from wrangling among competing political factions to violent activity by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, tribal disputes, and a southern secessionist movement. Later this month, the country’s leaders will finally join together for the start of the National Dialogue Conference in an effort to end gridlock on the country’s stalled political reform process and address worsening economic conditions.

As the country heads into this important dialogue, how does the Yemeni public view the future of the nation and the priorities they want their leaders to address? What are the key points of consensus and disagreement we can expect during the dialogue? How can the United States government support Yemen’s political transition as it seeks to advance other national security interests?

Please join the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Center for American Progress for a joint panel discussion featuring Barbara Bodine, Lecturer and Director of Scholars in the Nation’s Service at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs and former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen; Les Campbell, NDI Senior Associate and Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa who has recently returned from pre-Dialogue discussions in Yemen; and John Moreira, lead consultant for Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research who oversaw recent polling in Yemen.

Panelists:
Barbara Bodine, Lecturer and Director of Scholars in the Nation’s Service, Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University; former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen
Les Campbell, Senior Associate and Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, National Democratic Institute
John Moreira, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research

Moderator:
Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

In conjunction with this event, the National Democratic Institute will release a report on public perceptions in Yemen based on new survey results.

March 7, 2013, 12:00pm ET – 1:30pm ET

Space is extremely limited. RSVP required. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis and not guaranteed.A light lunch will be served at 11:30 a.m.

National Democratic Institute
455 Massachusetts Ave, NW
8th Floor
Washington, DC 20001

RSVP to attend this event

For more information, call 202-682-1611.

Saleh is ‘a provocative presence’

As Yemen’s key political actors  gear up for the forthcoming dialogue, envisaged as the first step towards a democratic transition, Les Campbell, Middle East director for the National Democratic Institute, finds a surprising degree of consensus. But former President Ali Abdullah Saleh (right) remains a “fly in the ointment” that could yet disrupt the fragile truce between rival factions.  

An important hurdle in the lead-up to Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference was passed on Wednesday as the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) – which had missed the first deadline – submitted the names of their delegates for the gathering which is slated to begin on March 18.  

The National Dialogue is an integral part of the Gulf Cooperation Council Agreement signed in late 2011 which saw the departure from office of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the creation of a government of national unity including the former ruling party, the General People’s Congress (GPC), and opposition JMP.  Part of a larger comprehensive dialogue program that will include a series of working groups and committees, 565 delegates will convene in Sana’a to begin discussion on topics including decentralization, election systems, forms of government, resolution of regional grievances in the north and south, restructuring of the security services and armed forces, economic development and a host of other issues. 

Still to come are the names of delegates representing the Southern Movement or Hirak, although officials of the Technical Committee for National Dialogue (TCND) remain confident that there will be significant southern representation. The Houthis – another key constituency in the dialogue process – have submitted their participants and reconfirmed that they will join the gathering. The Houthi clan, adherents of a form of Shi’a Islam, exerts control over parts of northern Yemen and have been involved in a number of limited wars with the Sana’a-based government. 

While there are sure to be last minute jitters, and political drama will likely surge prior to the start of the long anticipated summit, Yemen is currently enjoying an uncommon state of political harmony.  

Meetings in Sana’a over the past few days with officials of the former ruling party, opposition leaders, tribal sheikhs, youth activists and government ministers found a surprising state of consensus – national dialogue is the only solution to Yemen’s deep-rooted fissures and fault lines, most say, and security and economic prosperity will come only when compromise becomes preferable to conflict.  

The fly in the ointment is former President Saleh who continues to hold court with supporters and issue pronouncements through the media outlets controlled by his son, Ali Ahmed.  While not overtly disruptive, his presence is a provocation that, over time, could threaten to derail the fragile political truce currently holding sway. 

Even his defenders have come to believe that he must withdraw completely from politics – if not leave the country.  Saleh retains the chairmanship of the GPC – an inconvenient and somewhat embarrassing fact for current President Abd Rabo Mansur Hadi (left) whose picture is featured in GPC posters alongside that of Saleh. The not-so-subtle message is that Saleh remains the senior to his former Vice President. While it pains them, Saleh’s opponents outside the GPC are trying to mute criticism of the former president in the hopes that he will fade away and not dig in just to spite his enemies. Moderates within the GPC hope the same as many are anxious to rebuild the GPC as a modern party of pragmatic technocrats and to shed the Saleh albatross. 

Saleh distraction aside, Hadi continues to enjoy political approval ratings any politician would envy. Hadi’s personal prestige and credibility help maintain hope among Yemeni citizens that their security and economic concerns will soon be addressed – even in the face of limited progress. While many wish Hadi could inherit some of Saleh’s charisma and develop stronger networks of support, his solid performance has won respect.  

A significant challenge for Hadi lies in managing expectations on the pace and scope of change. While he has been able to restore some basic services to tolerable levels, many Yemenis are waiting for wholesale military re-structuring and movement on key grievances of the south related to land ownership and lost jobs following the 1994 civil war. These issues are among the core recommendations issued last August by the TCND, which called at the time for immediate action in an effort to promote participation in the dialogue process. 

The TCND’s sense of urgency on these matters may fail to acknowledge the complexities of the issues. President Hadi has initiated action on military reform and southern grievances, but has not secured closure on any. A National Democratic Institute meeting with President Hadi on Wednesday shed some light on his strategy. For him to act conclusively now on any one dialogue item could be seen as preempting the mandate of the delegates and discourage citizens from contributing to the debate.

The model for dialogue is respectful consultation, citizen engagement and the development of shared solutions. Unilateral action, according to Hadi, could ruin the opportunity for consensus policies which are likely more sustainable over the long run than presidential decrees. 

Perhaps Hadi will be proven right and his sentiments are certainly laudable but, in the meantime, lack of tangible change may give the former president a soapbox and could threaten the rare political timeout currently in place in Yemen’s capital. 

——————————————————————————————

“A year after President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in a deal brokered by the United States and Yemen’s Arab neighbors, the country’s three most influential families continue to cast a large shadow over the political transition,” The Washington Post’s Sudarsan Raghavan reports:

Unlike leaders of other nations altered by the Arab Spring revolutions, Yemen’s elites were neither jailed nor exiled, and they have remained inside the country, free to operate as they will.

Women Journalists Without Chains is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group. NDI is one of the NED’s core institutes.

“One year after what was billed as a ‘historic vote’, hopes for the new Yemen that protesters thought they had won are quickly disappearing in the face of a crumbling economy and a worsening political situation,” says a prominent analyst.

“Yemen is a broken country and no one – not the US, Saudi Arabia or any of the varied Yemeni factions – has the strength to put it back together again,” writes Princeton University’s Gregory D Johnsen:

Outsiders like the US are more concerned with fighting Al Qaeda than with rebuilding, and the Saudis have always worked to keep Yemen divided and dysfunctional. None of the Yemeni power groups have enough strength to impose their will upon anyone else, but most of them have enough guns and men to act as a spoiler.

Nobel peace laureate Tawakkul Karman (right) also recently described Yemen’s transition as “on the brink of collapse.”

“This dialogue will fail if this matter is not sorted out; restructuring the military and security forces comes first, then comes the national dialogue,” she said, warning of a possible return to street protests.

But Yemen’s vice president, Abdrabu Mansur Hadi said the conference, which should kick-start a process to draft a new constitution and electoral law for polls in 2014, was a “strategic and historic opportunity… to achieve a civic and modern state.”

The problem today is the same as a year ago, writes Johnsen, author of The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia:

….the deal that brought Mr Hadi to power was less a solution than a mechanism to buy time. None of the key issues were addressed and, more importantly, none of the country’s various armed factions were dealt with. Everything was pushed off to the future in the blind and desperate hope that a national dialogue would arrest the country’s disintegration. That has not happened.

“Few in Yemen seem to think the National Dialogue will work or bring about any sort of a lasting political settlement,” he concludes.

Even if all of Yemen’s factions agree to participate, “there are long-standing and near-intractable grievances that are unlikely to be resolved quickly,” says Johnsen.

“What happens if national dialogue doesn’t work is a question that is ignored as inconvenient.”

RTWT

Tawakkul Karman founded Women Journalists Without Chains, a Sana’a-based NGO, supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.

Further updates on Yemeni affairs are available through the Center for International Private Enterprise’s invaluable Yemen Digest. CIPE is one of the NED’s core institutes.

Youth activism the most rewarding result of the 2011 uprising, says Gabool Al-Mutawakel

Yemen’s interim President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has chosen March 18 as the date for a national dialogue to accelerate the country’s political transition, Agence France Presse reports:

The conference was delayed after factions in the Southern Movement, which has campaigned for autonomy or secession for the formerly independent south, refused to join the talks….The Common Forum parties, which represented the opposition under Saleh and control half of the current government, announced on Tuesday that they will take part in the dialogue.

The Shiite Huthi rebels, who fought the government of Saleh for many years in the north, also said they will participate in the forum. The position of some southern groups remains vague, but former vice president Ali Salem al-Beidh, who was the president of South Yemen, and who has demanded a full secession from the north, insists on shunning the talks.

A day after Nobel peace laureate Tawakkul Karman described Yemen’s transition as “on the brink of collapse,”  Hadi said the conference, which should kick-start a process to draft a new constitution and electoral law for polls in 2014, as a “strategic and historic opportunity… to achieve a civic and modern state.”

While the country’s politicians have been dragging their feet, Yemeni civil society has grown increasingly vibrant, writes Gabool Al-Mutawakel (above), co-founder of the Youth Leadership Development Foundation.

“Positive civil and political youth activism has been the most rewarding result of the Yemeni uprising of 2011,” she writes for Common Ground. “Individual activism, youth initiatives and the participation of youth in new political parties have introduced fresh approaches and perspectives to Yemen’s civil and political arenas.”

Youth involvement is changing the Yemeni landscape, says Mutawakel, a Reagan-Fascell fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy:

For example, in 2012 the Al-Watan Party (the Homeland Party) was co-founded by youth business leaders, development practitioners and professionals, many of whom had never previously engaged in politics. Its doctrine is that of a moderate and civil party based on individual initiative and social responsibility. ……

Another example is the Erada Foundation for a Qat-Free Yemen, established in early 2012 by Hind Eleryani, a journalist for NOW Arabic, Beirut, and carried forward by Nasser Alshama’a, an activist and the executive manager of Erada Foundation. Qat is a leaf that most of Yemenis chew for 4-6 hours daily. While chewing qat, people usually feel energetic. However, withdrawal symptoms make users lethargic and less productive. This affects the economic and social life of Yemenis. The emerging NGO’s pilot campaign was “One Day without Qat,” which has now happened twice and received a highly positive response from Yemenis and the media.

This extract is taken from a longer article for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews). RTWT

Yemen’s transition process is on the brink of collapse due to the failure to reform security institutions and disempower former regime elements, a leading activist warned today.

Former president Ali Abdullah Saleh should be excluded from politics, and youth, women and civil society given a proper say in the dialogue to advance the transition, said Nobel peace laureate Tawakkul Karman (left).

“The main obstacle facing the political transition and threatening its viability is the fact that Ali Abdullah Saleh remains a president of the General People’s Congress,” the former ruling party, she warned in an interview with AFP:

Saleh was eased out of office after 33 years in powers thanks to a UN-backed and Gulf-brokered deal that ended a year of protests that rocked the impoverished southern Arabian Peninsula nation. The agreement reached in November 2011 with the opposition gave Saleh and his aides immunity from prosecution, but it did not stipulate a political ban on him.

The deal, signed in Riyadh after months of anti-government protests and deadly clashes between pro- and anti-Saleh troops, brought Hadi to power for an interim two-year period in a single-candidate vote. It also called for a national dialogue where all parties, including the opposition, youth and northern rebels are expected to come together and agree on a new constitution and on the next presidential and parliamentary elections.

“The ousted president is the one to choose the GPC’s representatives,” she said, adding that Saleh’s party “rejects the dialogue” and insisting that the former head of state “should exit politics completely”.

“The political transition process is not going according to the mechanism set in the Gulf initiative, which was imposed on us and we accepted it only on the condition that it will be fully implemented,” said Karman.

“The world should listen to us and assume responsibilities now that we say that the country is on the brink of collapse.”

Karman suggested that the interim President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi is unable to restructure the military, dismantle the elite Republican Guard or remove Saleh’s relatives from key positions of power.

“This dialogue will fail if this matter is not sorted out; restructuring the military and security forces comes first, then comes the national dialogue,” she said, warning of a possible return to street protests.

“If we find that the country will be heading to collapse, we might find that the solution would be in returning to our base in the street, and demonstrations.”

Karman founded Women Journalists Without Chains, a Sana’a-based NGO, supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.

Further updates on Yemeni affairs are available through the Center for International Private Enterprise’s invaluable Yemen Digest. CIPE is one of the NED’s core institutes.

Credit: CIPE

Two years on from Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution that sparked the Arab Spring, has sectarianism overtaken democracy as the driving force of the region’s popular upsurge?

“Tribal, regional, and sectarian factionalism made political progress in Yemen agonizingly slow, as did tribal and regional divides in Libya,” says F. Gregory Gause, a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings’ Doha Center.

On November 23, 2011, Yemen’s revolution subsided with an agreement brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), enacting a two-year transitional government led by President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, writes Samaa Al Hamdani.

According to this agreement, a national dialogue is scheduled to take place by the end of February or the beginning of March to decide the formation of the new government and its constitution, she writes for the Fikra Forum.

However, the transition appears to be dawdling, causing many Yemenis to lose faith. Delays can be attributed to Yemen’s complex ethnic and tribal affiliations and interests, a deteriorating security situation, and Hadi’s meticulous oversight, with a careful intent to avoid aggressive backlash and to maintain the nation’s stability. Nevertheless, the national dialogue is progressing, the success of which will be critical in determining the future stability of the country.

All Yemenis, regardless of their political opinions, must be represented in this dialogue; otherwise, the dialogue will fail and the country will be paralyzed. So far, the Southern Hirak has not released their party list and independent applicants from the South are hesitant to apply, seemingly discouraged to join. Recently, in a first step toward transitional and restorative justice, Hadi assigned two committees to address land disputes and forcible job expulsions that occurred in Yemen’s southern provinces of following the 1994 civil war. If this effort fails, the southerners will continue to feel persecuted and will demand secession.

Following President Hadi’s decree, many wonder what will happen to Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, former leader of the First Armored Division. Mohsen, though demoted, remains an influential military figure, and may participate as an advisor to the tribal members of the dialogue. Meanwhile, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh is still considered the president of the General People’s Congress (GPC) party, though he is sick and needs medical treatment. The national dialogue technical committee did not specify any restrictions against Saleh’s attendance, but if Saleh decides to attend, the majority of participants will withdraw, ruining any real chance of dialogue. {This extract is taken from a longer post at Fikra Forum: RTWT. Sama’a Al-Hamdani writes on the blog Yemeniaty.com. You can follow her on Twitter @Yemeniaty)

Yemen’s Tawakul Karman is confident that change is unfolding, the Los Angeles Times reports:
Karman’s transformation from a rebel in the Arab world’s poorest country to a polished Nobel laureate remains unfinished. One newspaper ventured that she would “mature” into the role. Karman appears earnest, and possesses a keen ability to summon sound bites against injustice. She stopped wearing a face veil years ago, saying it hid her from her message. She and others became an example as more young women peeled away the fabric of custom. Today, her days are spent updating her website and traveling with a small entourage that meets at her headquarters, Women Journalists Without Chains. She speaks of stemming government corruption, restructuring military and intelligence services and writing a new constitution to speak to the ideals of the young.

Hat tip: CIPE’s Yemen blog.

Women Journalists Without Chains is a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy.  CIPE is one of the NED’s four core institutes.