Revoting in Yemen
a do-over
SANA’A, Oct. 18 — The Appeal Court in Lahj told the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum to repeat local council elections in one of the voting centers in Al-Had District, Yafe’e, within 60 days.
The main committee in the district and the supervisory committee in the governorate announced earlier that the local council candidate of Joint Meeting Parties at the governorate level, Ali Mohamed Saleh won 5034 votes, compared to 4734 votes for his closest rival.
The verdict was issued following a vote result challenge filed by the local council candidate of General People Congress against the JMP candidate’s victory.
The commission for elections is expected to call on Yemeni voters in 5 districts and 80 voting centers to revote in the complementary elections in these districts and centers where the poll process was suspended during the election.
The Election Law stipulates that complementary elections must be conducted in any voting centers or districts where the vote result was cancelled or the poll process suspended within three months following the date of cancelling the vote result.
The Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (SCER) has today approved its time frame
For holding presidential and local councils by-elections at 150 polling stations in number of Yemeni governorates where the electors were not able to cast their votes on 20 of last September elections.
An official source at the SCER told almotamar.net that original committees in the local constituencies will go to their headquarters on Monday 7 November to carry out their tasks of preparing the polling centers and receiving voters. The SCER has approved the 12th of next November a date for opening candidacy for local councils in local constituencies where elections were not held and the 16th of the same month as a date for the poling.
Dr Abdulmimin Shjaudin, member of the SCER told almotamar.net the time span between 13 to 22 of November the date of receiving applications of candidacy and the period of 22 to 23 of the same month as a date for withdrawal. Head of the legal affairs sector at the SCER clarified to almotamar.net the period of candidates’ elections propaganda in the by-elections begins from the 27th of next November and ends on the 1st of December, expecting the announcement of elections results on 19th of December next.
Official reports revealed inability of holding local and presidential elections in 17 local constituencies due to disputes among candidates, some of which reached the extent of exchange of fire and similar differences among the public and electors had precluded holding voting at other 7 local constituencies.
Almotamar.net got a copy of the report mentioned the issuance of judicial judgments on re-counting of votes and re-voting in 4 constituencies and attributed inability of holding elections in a local constituency in Socotra to atmospheric circumstances. Other 25 local constituencies, mentioned in the official reports, the counting of votes stopped and also the polling without mentioning the reasons, other 7 the reports said their results had not been received and in other 8 constituencies the postponement of results said to have been due to no legal documents.
The presidential elections were held on 20th of last September resulted in the winning of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the candidate of the General People’s Congress by 77.17% against 21.81% of the JMP candidate.
