Saturday, May 21, 2011

YEMEN - A Saudi plan far from popular demands

The plan to end the crisis presented April 23 by the Gulf monarchies is actually intended to prevent the transition to democracy in Yemen. Indeed, it preempts the choice of the people in the form of the future regime, dedicated to advance the presidential system instead of the parliamentary system that would favor the demonstrators.

This plan would be perfectly capable of settling a crisis between the government and the opposition [the coalition of opposition parties, the Joint Meeting, which brings particular the Yemeni Socialist Party and the Islamic party Al-Islah-tribal, finally agreed that map]. But it is not a political crisis, it is a revolution.

Therefore, the revolutionary legitimacy should be imposed in the institutional legitimacy. [Youth movements camped in various cities across the country have rejected the plan and continue to demand the downfall of the regime and the immediate departure of the president.] The attitude of the Gulf countries vis-à-vis the Yemen is characterized by sometimes hesitations, sometimes by their bias in favor of incumbent President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to the detriment of popular demands.

On three occasions, they presented a plan to end the crisis. Everyone was down compared to last year. The first of April 3 and simply demanded the immediate resignation of President Ali Saleh. April 10, the second plane gave a deadline of one month and provided for the transfer of power to Vice-President.

Finally, the third and final plan is a net decline even more. Instead of pressing public demands, it prevents criminal prosecution of President Saleh and granted him thirty days suspended to revalue its copy and try to divide the protest, even to resume enforcement. The fact that every initiative of the Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC, which groups the oil monarchies of the peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar] is down compared to the previous one, reflects the differences view between its six members.

The inflections in favor of the regime in Sana'a were obtained by Saleh after sending his envoys to Riyadh to plead his case. Because it is Saudi Arabia which is blocking the requests fall of the regime. She does not want Yemenis manage their transition to democracy for fear of losing influence over its neighbor, which it regards as its backyard.

She has embraced the view of Ali Abdullah Saleh that he must respect the framework of the Yemeni Constitution. In reality it is a pretext for him to stay in office. Itself has ceased to manipulate the Constitution. Ironically, the idea of granting legal immunity to the president by a parliamentary vote is unconstitutional, since the mandate of MPs has expired for over two months.

Similarly, the idea to call a presidential election does not comply with the obligation to precede the presidential election by lawmakers. The young revolutionaries of Yemen have demonstrated goodwill vis-à-vis the initiatives of the GCC, but they ask that their claims are taken into account.

If this could be the case, it would contribute to a real transition in Yemen and would impact positively on future relations between Yemen and GCC countries. Otherwise, it would jeopardize these lasting relationships. Plans for the move but peoples remain.

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