$Unique_ID{COW02700} $Pretitle{383A} $Title{Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) Chapter 3B. Contemporary Government and Politics} $Subtitle{} $Author{Laurie Krieger} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{government president national tribal constitution local yemen law north salih} $Date{1985} $Log{Table B.*0270001.tab } Country: Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) Book: The Yemens, An Area Study: North Yemen Author: Laurie Krieger Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1985 Chapter 3B. Contemporary Government and Politics Political Institutions On September 26, 1962, the day of the military coup that ended the millennium-long rule of the Zaydi imams, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) proclaimed itself the country's executive organ, and two days later the RCC established the country's first council of ministers. On October 31, 1962, the RCC proclaimed a transitional constitution to be the legal basis of the new republic for a maximum five-year period while a permanent constitution was being drafted; this 1962 document has become known as the country's first constitution. It defined the legislative functions of an independent national congress, in practice amounting to joint meeting of the RCC and the cabinet. Under Egyptian guidance, the RCC prepared a permanent constitution well ahead of the five-year deadline, but its publication on April 28, 1964, was greeted with resistance. On May 8, 1965, another transitional constitution was proclaimed; it changed the RCC to the three-member Republican Council and provided for an expanded ministerial system and an advisory body, the Consultative Assembly. After the Egyptian withdrawal and overthrow of President Sallal in late 1967, this 1965 document continued to be the primary legal basis of the new regime established by Iryani. Many of the framers of the 1965 transitional constitution were members of the new government. It is notable because it was the first constitution drawn up solely by North Yemenis. President Iryani promised that a permanent constitution would be drafted as soon as possible, but it was not until after the end of the civil war that a new draft was made public. In his role as chairman of the Republican Council, Iryani proclaimed the new constitution on December 28, 1970 (see Postwar Reconciliation under Iryani, this ch.). But it had been in effect for only two and one-half years-and few laws had been formulated to implement its proposals for new institutions-when on June 13, 1974, Iryani was deposed by Hamdi. The constitution was suspended, and the MCC assumed all legislative and executive functions. On June 19, 1974, another provisional constitution was decreed that asserted a legal basis for Hamdi's coup d'etat. Hamdi promised a new permanent constitution within a year, but by mid-1985 neither he nor his successors had fulfilled this promise, and the 1974 provisional constitution apparently remained in effect. Like the 1970 constitution, the 1974 document asserts the Arab and Islamic character of the nation and proclaims sharia as the source of all laws. The fundamental rights and duties of citizens are defined in some detail. It places the MCC at the apex of the governmental system but defines the judiciary as independent, there being "no authority over it except for the law." Article 19 asserts that "during the transitional period action shall be taken to restore constitutional and democratic life on sound bases in view of the need to provide the Yemeni people with a dignified life and a bright future." Hamdi had dissolved the Consultative Assembly in October 1975. His successor, President Ghashmi, formed a new advisory organ, the PCA, in February 1978. This 99-member body was appointed by the MCC. With the dissolution of the latter in April 1978, the PCA named Ghashmi president for a five-year term. In May 1979, its membership, all appointed, was expanded to 159 persons. In mid-1985 the president stood at the apex of the governmental system, advised by a consultative council and assisted by a president's office, which was established in 1983 (see Political Institutions, this ch.). Formally designated by the PCA, Salih served a five-year term as president between 1978 and 1983. The president appointed the prime minister, who headed a council of ministers that in mid-1985 consisted of 23 cabinet-level members (see fig. 8; table B). There was a vice president, who in mid-1985 was Arashi. Aside from formally nominating the president, the PCA had the function of reviewing and conferring its approval on legislation drawn up by the president and the council of ministers. Observers noted that as of mid-1985 it had never attempted to assert its independence by opposing government measures. Its apparent purpose was to serve as a transitional institution to be replaced eventually by an elected parliament; although Salih had promised PCA elections on several occasions after coming to office as part of the "completion of the democratic process in the Yemeni arena," these had not been held by mid-1985, and the PCA membership remained entirely appointed by presidential decree. Municipal elections were held, however, in 1979. There were no legal political parties in the mid-1980s, and thus opportunities for the populace at large to take part in the political process were extremely limited. On October 24, 1982, however, Salih convened the People's General Congress (PGC) to serve as an instrument for popular political mobilization. In the words of a correspondent writing for the Financial Times of London in November 1984, the PGC is "like a mass political party, but officially not one; the president says he believes in "no party government'." The PGC's membership when organized in 1982 was 1,000 persons, 300 of whom were appointed by the government and 700 of whom were chosen in a nationwide election that was carried out in two stages. In the first stage 2,100 persons were chosen from local constituencies, and in the second, 700 representatives to the PGC were chosen from among the successful first-stage candidates. It is unclear how candidates were nominated or whether voters had a choice of more than one candidate. Members were described in local accounts as coming from all significant social groups, and they included a small number of women. [See Table B.: North Yemen: President and Council of Ministers, April 1985] Salih assumed the title of secretary general of the PGC. At its first meeting in late August 1982, the PGC elected 50 of the 75 members of its Permanent Committee (the rest were appointed by Salih) and ratified the National Charter of the Yemen Arab Republic, a document embodying Salih's political priorities and goals. To publicize the charter, PGC committees held meetings throughout the country. In August 1984 the organization held its second national convention. The National Charter, popularly known as the "blue book," is a 120-page document that expresses the president's viewpoint on a range of topics related to the nature and purpose of the North Yemeni state. It is divided into five chapters: the first deals with ideology and Islamic law; the second with the duties of the citizen, democracy, freedom, and "national unity as the basis for Arab Yemeni unity"; the third with public administration, social justice, and economic development; the fourth with national defense; and the fifth with foreign policy. The National Charter appeared to be an instrument through which Salih sought to give his regime legitimacy and ideological coherence at a time when the country was deeply divided after the fighting with the NDF and when unification talks were initiated with the more tightly organized and disciplined South Yemeni regime. Public administration in the modern sense did not exist in North Yemen before the September 26 Revolution. Although Imam Yahya had set up a cabinet in 1931, it had only one ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with a total staff of six persons, including the foreign minister (see Independent Yemen ch. 1.). Beginning in early 1963, the setting up of modern forms of public administration proceeded at a rapid pace under Egyptian auspices: 11 ministries were established, the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) was organized to train civil servants (between 1970 and 1982 some 13,000 government employees took NIPA courses), and the Civil Service Commission (CSC) was set up to oversee the emerging national administration. In 1982 the number of civil servants working in national government ministries and agencies was estimated at 35,000. Regional and Local Government Hegemony of the central government over the local authorities, especially tribal leaders, remained indirect and in most cases nominal and was exercised through traditional or military leaders according to the dictates of the region. As of mid-1985 cohesiveness between the local levels of administration and the government in Sanaa had not been achieved, although numerous attempts had been made to increase the central government's authority throughout the country. The procedures of local government, however, have remained largely unchanged since the period of Ottoman rule. In the mid-1980s regional and local governments were divided into five levels. There were 11 provincial (muhafaza governments, called governorates, which were headed by governors appointed by the president. The remaining four levels of local administration, in descending order, where the qadawat (sing., qada), or districts; the nawahi (sing., nahiyya), towns or subdistricts; the izal (sing., uzla), groups of villages; and individual villages. At the nahiyya level the principal official was the general director of the nahiyya, who was appointed by the Sanaa Government. According to Swanson, the official usually was an outsider and rarely served for more than a two year term. On the uzla level the shaykhs were the most important leaders, having local power bases. They were key figures in the resolution of disputes between individuals in the uzla, negotiations with outsiders (including the central government), and the maintenance of peace and order. According to Swanson, the shaykh's position was "semi-hereditary with a strong element of consent on the part of the people and the government." Although shaykhs frequently received subsidies from Sanaa, it was apparent that their prestige depended in large measure on maintaining independent power bases. Swanson notes that the authority of a shaykh was usually greater when he and his followers lived in an area remote from the central government. In localities close to nahiyya centers, individuals sometimes bypassed the shaykh and made appeals to government officials. On the village level, the aqil, or headman, performed many of the same functions as the shaykh but on a reduced scale. Beginning in 1971 LDAs were established on the nahiyya level to harness local energies for development projects such as roads, wells, hospitals, and schools. These cooperatives supported in part by government subsidies and in part by local contributions, were managed by LDA general committees with 50 to 100 members; day-to-day administrative responsibilities were in the hands of a seven- to nine-member administrative committee chosen from among the membership of the general committee. These committees were popularly elected, at least in principle, and local leaders played the most prominent role. Each governorate had a Local Development Association Coordinating Council (LDACC), and on the national level the Confederation of Yemeni Development Associations (CYDA) had been established in 1973. The Judicial System In the mid-1980s sharia remained the principal source of public and private law, though the legal system in its totality reflected the various divisions of the population. There were several legal systems operating at various levels of administration and, although proposals had been advanced for a systematic codification, procedures, and a hierarchical court structure including a supreme court, there had been at best limited progress in the direction of establishing a unified judicial system. After the 1962 revolution, sharia remained the designated legal system of the republican government. An older system of law that still affects a large portion of the population, however, is called urf, of customary law. Urf and other forms of customary law remain in the tribal communities; the most common means of redressing grievances under this system is through revenge and reparation (see Qabayl, this ch.). The legal system was primarily based on the interpretations of the Shafii school of Islamic law but has also been heavily colored by the simultaneous development of Zaydi law (see The Zaydis; the Shafiis, ch. 1). Zaydi law incorporates an important concept called ijtihad (independent reasoning). This principle permits the judge or ruler to make decisions concerning cases not explicitly covered by sharia and in practice has itself become a source of law. This attitude of flexibility in dealing with matters outside the scope of sharia, such as commercial and labor disputes, usually permits change to occur with less resistance than in countries applying a legal system strictly derived from sharia. Although the 1974 provisional constitution states that the judiciary is independent, the lack of autonomous, well-developed judicial institutions meant that in fact courts were under government control. Sharia courts had been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice since 1964. Their organization, however, was not uniform throughout the country, and administrative details varied from one governorate to another. The Sharia Court of Sanaa, established in 1964, was the highest court in the country. In 1977 the government created the niyaba al amma (office of the public prosecutor) as an agency of the Ministry of Justice. The niyaba al amma, modeled on French and Egyptian precedents, placed a wide range of public officials performing judicial functions-extending from provincial governors to village heads-under its jurisdiction insofar as they exercised those functions. The office also supervised prisons. Its most important responsibility, however, was the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases. According to Messick, the most significant aspect of the office was its definition of a clearly public sphere of law and the fact that its jurisdiction extended to cases that traditionally were settled through private vengeance. It was not clear, however, how viable the institution was because of the strength of tribal traditions and the lack of central government control over rural areas. Sharia judges were appointed by the minister of justice, and their decisions were usually held to be final, although appeal to the Sharia Court of Sanaa was possible. Because sharia is not case law, a judge does not have to follow precedent and is not bound by decisions of other judges or a higher court. In the mid-1980s the State Security Court, outside the sharia framework, heard all political cases. The Presidency of Ali Abdallah Salih When Colonel Salih was designated president by the PCA in July 1978, observers thought it unlikely that he would escape the fate of his unfortunate predecessors, presidents Hamdi and Ghashmi. Tensions were building with South Yemen, intertribal rivalries were intense, and an ethos that encouraged wronged parties to pursue a course of violent self-help in a land where rifles were said to out-number the inhabitants two-to-one ensured that the president would be the target of frequent coup attempts. Although military governor of Taizz Province at the time of Ghashmi's assassination, Salih had limited education and experience. His membership in the Sanhan, a Zaydi tribe whose territory is located to the southwest of Sanaa, was a disadvantage politically because of the tribe's small size and relatively low status. His survival skills proved remarkable during his precarious first years in office. Commentators noted that he quickly learned how to balance different political forces both inside and outside North Yemen and that this contributed to his success in staying in power and garnering a moderate degree of popular support. Salih protected himself by appointing members of the Sanhan tribe to sensitive positions is the army, police, military intelligence, and government, and in mid-1985 he still maintained a personal bodyguard of several hundred fellow tribesmen. Nevertheless, the president was described in the mid-1980s as taking considerable risk by traveling throughout the country to hold majlises (personal audiences) with local tribal and religious leaders and ordinary citizens. Through institutional development and the moderate ideology espoused in the National Charter, he sought to invest the regime with a sense of legitimacy and continuity. He also sought to build up a modest "cult of personality"; his picture, for example, was a prominent feature of government publications, including the National Charter. In May 1979 Salih established a 15-member advisory council composed of representatives of various elements of political life, including the sayyid and qadi classes, former royalists, old-line republicans, and all varieties of moderates and conservatives. Both leftists and conservatives were given government posts, and even the shaykhs were placated by being given positions of at least symbolic importance. By the time of the October 15, 1980, cabinet reshuffle in which Abd al Ghani was moved to second vice president and Abd al Karim al Iryani (nephew of the deposed leader) became prime minister, technocrats had begun to play a growing role in government. Salih's internal balancing act was mirrored by his foreign policy, which maintained ties to both east and west and balanced links to Saudi Arabia with ties to other Arab states. Through the rest of 1978 and into 1979 unrest in the southern area of the country continued, and this, coupled with a serious abortive coup three months after his accession to power, pushed the new president to depend more than he wished on the armed northern tribes (see National Security, this ch.). During the 1978-82 period, Salih was preoccupied with the challenge posed by South Yemen and the South Yemen-backed NDF. The period after early 1982, when reunification talks with Aden were resumed and confrontation subsided, was one of consolidation as the president sought to promote national unity through the medium of the PGC and economic development as envisioned in the Second Five-Year Plan. On May 22, 1983, the PCA unanimously elected Salih for a second four-year term as president. Although many observers commended him for giving North Yemen the most stable government since the establishment of the republic in 1962, the country remained deeply divided. The lack of strong institutions and a sense of legitimacy-as well as the country's violent traditions-left Salih's regime precariously exposed. There was no want of opponents ready and willing to seek his removal, and there were coup attempts in the mid-1980s. The Northern Tribes in the Mid-1980s The Zaydi tribes of the north, whose territory extends from the region south of Sanaa to the Saudi Arabian border in the north, have never fully accepted the authority of the Sanaa government. They considered the imams as legitimate rulers not only because of religious sanctions but also because they provided the tribes as a whole with unified leadership in times of crisis. The passing of the imamate left a vacuum that the succession of regimes in Sanaa has been unable to fill. In the mid-1980s large areas of tribal territory remained outside effective central control. This reflected not only the people's strong sense of independence but also the highly diffuse nature of traditional tribal authority, itself largely a product of a rugged and mountainous terrain (see The Physical Environment, this ch.). Although intertribal relations have often been described, to borrow Mao Zedong's phrase, as "coming out of the barrel of a gun," tribal identity has been highly stable. The two major tribal confederations, the Hashid and the Bakil, have existed since pre-Islamic times. According to anthropologist Paul Dresch, each tribe maintains its own distinct territory, and the seizure of one tribe's land by another is relatively rare. Within the context of seemingly endless violence, as tribal groups sought restitution for wrongs suffered at the hands of others, there was an underlying stability as tribal leaders-the shaykhs-maintained order within their territories in compliance with customary law. Dresch notes, for example, that although tribes have customarily had the right to deny outsiders passage through their territory and to detain trespassers, they must make an announcement of their intention beforehand. The tribal political system has traditionally been highly decentralized; authority was vested in the shaykhs who were not rulers in the conventional sense but were respected arbitrators of intratribal or intertribal disputes and leaders in time of war (see Social Class and Tribe, this ch.). On their shoulders rested the responsibility for interpreting and putting into practice the large body of customary law as it related to property rights and matters of personal and family honor. When honor was violated and shame or injury incurred, the role of the shaykh was to restore peace through the offer of proper restitution to the injured party. The widely accepted myth of tribal life, expressed by tribals themselves, was that "the nation is free because each of her sons disdains a base submission to the will of a master." This ideology of rigorous individualism was basically inimical to the imposition of any sort of vigorous central control, both before and after 1962. The diffuseness of tribal political authority has aided the central government insofar as tribes have been unable to find a single issue or leader around which to unite and a lack of numbers and weapons necessary to challenge the armed forces. On the national level, tribal influence has tended to be highly conservative, a counterweight to pro-Soviet influences centered in South Yemen. Tribal volunteers played the key role in halting the South Yemeni and NDF advance into North Yemen in 1979. Observers in the mid-1980s believed that they posed a formidable obstacle to genuine progress in the direction of Yemeni unity. The National Democratic Front The NDF-a leftist movement formed in March 1976 by diverse groups of socialists, Marxists, Nasserites, and others disaffected with the Hamdi regime-sought to over-throw Salih in January 1979 with the support of South Yemeni forces. In the early 1980s the NDF, headed by secretary general Sultan Ahmad Umar, carried out an active insurgency in the southern part of the country. Guerrilla activity intensified through 1982, when several hundred rebels and government soldiers were killed. By 1985 the movement was described as largely inactive owing to the successes of the Sanaa forces. The NDF's principal domestic support came from Shafiis living in the southern region of the country, bordering South Yemen and from some Zaydi tribes at odds with the government; although the NDF's ideology was leftist, much of its appeal was the result of sectarian sentiment and southern resentment of the alleged privileged social and political position of Zaydis. The NDF supported Yemeni unification on Aden's terms, was hostile to alleged Saudi Arabian influence in North Yemen, and combined anti-imperialist rhetoric with appeals to Islamic concepts of social justice and equity. Islamic Fundamentalists Islamic fundamentalism had significant support among lower-middle class and middle-class people, including university students and graduates, in the urban areas of North Yemen during the mid-1980s. The Islamic Front, the group led by Shaykh Ahmar, head of the Hashid tribal confederation in the northern tribal areas, gained importance elsewhere because of the influence of many of the 23,000 Egyptian teachers employed in North Yemeni schools. The Front had affinities with the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan al Muslimun), a fundamentalist movement founded in Egypt in 1928, and was hostile to South Yemen and its sympathizers in the North. A number of cabinet ministers were known to be close to the Front, including at least two in mid-1985: the minister of foreign affairs, Abd al Karim al Iryani, and the minister of local government, Muhammad Abdallah al Jaifi. Many observers believed, however, that Islamic fundamentalism was not, in the mid-1980s, a cohesive or decisive factor in domestic politics.