Armies of Liberation

UNITED STATES INTSTITUTE OF PEACE SPECIAL REPORT
Engaging Islmaists and Promoting Democracy

YEMEN
Path to Reform. Yemen’s path to reform has been dogged by widespread poverty, high
illiteracy rates, and endemic corruption. Significant democratic reforms were implemented
in the 1990 unification of North and South Yemen, including the legalization of opposition
parties, creation of an independent electoral system, and expanded press freedoms.
Parliamentary elections were held in 1993. However, Yemen’s democratic opening was
marred by numerous setbacks, capped in 2001 by a presidential consolidation of power
that amended the constitution to extend both parliamentary and presidential terms. The
president also gained new powers to dissolve the parliament and extended his control over
the legislature by enlarging the president-appointed upper house.
In September 2006, in an election questioned by observers, Ali Abdullah Saleh
remained as president, lengthening his rule to nearly three decades. Yemen’s short-term
prospects for democratic reform remain dim, but democracy advocates still view the presidential
race—which featured a genuine opposition candidate backed by a secular-Islamist
pro-reform coalition—as a potential step toward greater political opening. Observers are
now focusing on whether the opposition, particularly the powerful Islah party, with its
strong grassroots base, can be a political counterweight to the regime and agitator for
democratic reform.
islah: Yemen’s Principal islamist Party. The Yemeni Assembly for Reform, known
popularly as Islah, was founded in 1990. Its roots and spiritual core lie in Yemen’s Muslim
Brotherhood, which was established in the early 1960s. Led by one of Yemen’s most influential
tribal leaders, Sheikh Abdullah Hussein al-Ahmar, the Islah party is more of a loose
coalition of tribal and religious elements than a political party. Its membership includes
people associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, pious conservatives attached to Yemen’s
religious institutes, and key segments of the tribal population. Islah’s base, considered
the fastest growing in Yemen, is young and angry with the status quo. As 40 percent of
Yemenis live below the poverty line, the party mobilizes its popular support by opposing
widespread government corruption and the lack of basic public services.
Islah initially was allied with the government and still has tribal ties to the president.
However, beginning in the late 1990s, it spearheaded opposition to the government’s
encroachment on Yemen’s nascent democratic reforms. During the 2003 parliamentary
elections—marred by widespread irregularities—the ruling General Popular Congress
(GPC) gained 225 of 301 seats while Islah won only 46 seats. Nonetheless, the Islamist
party had the greatest number of seats among opposition parties. The Yemeni Socialist
Party (YSP), the other principal opposition group, won only 7 seats.
Islah’s platform is socially conservative, seeking “social reform in all fields of life
on the basis of Islam,”28 and the party emphasizes that its commitment to reform and
democratic governance is bound by Islamic laws. However, Islah’s approach to reform is
modern, calling for enhanced political pluralism, an independent judiciary, and the peaceful
transfer of power.
Today, Islah is the only opposition party with broad grassroots appeal. It has an
extremely sophisticated organizational structure, with a strong presence at the national,
provincial, and local levels. To advocate for democratic reforms, it has joined forces with
secular parties, principally the YSP; in November 2005, Islah presented a comprehensive
reform platform as part of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), a coalition of six opposition

parties. The program calls for a parliamentary system with diminished executive powers,
an independent judiciary, improved electoral laws, and the depoliticization of the military.
It is an important milestone for cross-party cooperation, though skeptics point to differences
among the parties as an inherent weakness in Yemen’s reform movement.29
Islah’s members break down generally into reformers and hard-liners. The reform faction
occupies the party’s middle and upper echelons of leadership and exerts the most
influence on Islah’s policy positions. Reformers in the party typically hail from Yemen’s
intelligentsia; they are editors, journalists, or technocrats in government and business.
Among hard-liners, some consider Sheikh Abd al-Majid al Zindani to be Islah’s spiritual
guide. He is the president of al-Iman University and, until February 2007, headed Islah’s
Shura Council. Zindani’s more doctrinaire approach appeals to Islah’s conservative base,
though he is reportedly marginal to the inner workings of the party. Zindani is deeply
opposed to engagement with the West and often criticizes moderates within the party for
their ties to Western organizations. He represents Islah’s hard-line membership, many of
them veterans of the Afghan war of the 1980s; some analysts argue that without Islah,
the veterans might have continued on a path of violent extremism.30 Concerned by
Zindani’s radicalism and possible links to al-Qaeda, the U.S. government labeled Zindani
a “specially designated global terrorist” in February 2004 and has pressured the Yemeni
government to extradite him to the United States.31 Islah party members voted Zindani
off the Shura Council in February 2007, but also urged the Yemeni government to pressure
Washington to remove him from its list of global terrorists.
Yemen has a long tradition of Islamist extremism, but an International Crisis Group
report asserts that Islah itself “plays a mediating role between the state and the country’s
more conservative elements.” The report also describes Sheikh Abdullah as “far more a traditional
tribal leader and republican hero than Islamist ideologue” and asserts that there
are two principal streams of Yemeni Islamism: “members of Islah who opt to participate in
the system and the radical groups that oppose the Yemeni state as well as the West.”32
NDi Programming. The IRI does not conduct programming in Yemen. The NDI began
working in Yemen in 1993 and opened its field office in 1997. NDI programming centers
on political-party development, parliamentary strengthening, and women’s participation.
The institute also provides election-monitoring training and support and operates a
tribal conflict–resolution program. The NDI’s political-party training focuses on message
development, recruitment, and constituent outreach. Its parliamentary-strengthening
component seeks to identify reform-minded members of the parliament and strengthen
their core skills. The women’s programming aims to increase national and political-party
support for woman candidates and provide them with campaigning skills.
engagement with islah. The NDI has engaged with Islah through all three of its programming
components and in elections preparations and monitoring. The institute works
exclusively with moderates in the party, as Islah hard-liners remain adamantly opposed to
the party’s ties to Western organizations. The NDI’s chief representative in Sanaa meets
regularly with Islah’s secretary general, deputy, and other leaders. NDI staff also meets
regularly with mid-level party officials. NDI staff in Yemen underscored “the endless phone
calls and meetings that overall make a real difference. Trainings simply open the door for
contact. A tremendous amount of follow-up, advice, and strategizing goes on beyond the
formal training programs. It is here that we may in fact have the greatest impact.”33 NDI
representatives noted that, compared with other political parties participating in their
trainings, Islah was better organized and able to affect the reform movement.
Cross-Party Cooperation. A crucial part of the NDI’s work centers on building relations
between opposition party leaders and fostering secular-Islamist cooperation on reform.
The NDI uses interparty dialogue to advance the reform agenda, actively supporting the
aforementioned JMP, a group of six opposition parties including Islah that has pushed for
greater democratic reform and political opening. Established in 2002, the JMP is essentially
a collaborative effort between Islah and the YSP, an ardently secular party. The parties
have worked together on a number of process-related issues, such as electoral law reform.

The NDI helped to bring the parties together and has hosted numerous JMP meetings and
sponsored Islah and YSP delegates on a number of trips abroad. The NDI asserts that the
parties can more easily forge important bonds by meeting outside of Yemen.
Results of engagement. Islah has worked closely with the NDI for several years,
and certain efforts, such as encouraging women’s political participation and cross-party
cooperation, have yielded tangible results. However, NDI parliamentary work with Islah
does not appear to have had a significant effect. The NDI’s limited success with regard
to parliamentary programs could reflect the parliament’s relative weakness. Similarly, it
is difficult to measure the local effect of engaging Islah, as municipal councils are weak.
The local councils were only established in 2001. They have little revenue and councilors
have minimal training. Gauging Islah’s response to NDI efforts, therefore, may best be
accomplished through examining its capacity for Islamist-secular cooperation, the level
of interaction with NDI, and potential for greater moderation.
islamist-Secular Cooperation. The JMP is perhaps the most resounding success of the
NDI’s work in Yemen. The Islamist-secular reform coalition began as a weak and ineffectual
alliance, wracked by division. It has become a serious advocate for reform that might
be an effective counterweight to the government. The JMP’s two primary members, Islah
and the YSP, realized that cooperation was essential to opposing the government’s power.
As Abdul Wahab al-Anisi, deputy secretary general of Islah explained, “We subordinated
our ideological agendas to the one thing we all had in common, which was a realization
that political reform was a necessity if we were to save democracy in Yemen and stop the
country’s descent into endemic corruption.”34
The JMP members’ reform platform serves as a model for bridging the gap between
secularists and Islamists throughout the Arab world. The JMP also pressured the government
to amend electoral procedures before the September 2006 elections and agreed on a
joint presidential candidate whose campaign offered Yemenis a genuine reform alternative
to President Saleh and the country’s first true multicandidate presidential election.
The NDI did not create the JMP, but members of both Islah and the YSP have commended
the NDI for its advice and training, noting the institute’s important contributions
to their joint efforts. In particular, the NDI has focused on promoting the coalition’s
reform platform. In early 2006, soon after the platform’s publication, the NDI met with
several JMP representatives to translate elements of the program into a concrete election
platform. In addition, the institute provided training on message development and communication
methods that JMP members could use in local election campaigns.
level of interaction. The NDI appears to have established excellent working relations
with Islah. NDI staff meet regularly with Islah members at all levels, which seems
to have fostered a well-established sense of trust between moderate Islah reformers and
the institute. Again, directly linking a strong working relationship to the ideological and
programmatic emphases of Islah’s leaders is difficult, but the progress toward democratic
reforms—however tentative at times—likely owes something to the depth and professionalism
of Islah’s relationship with the NDI and the party’s openness to trainings and
other activities. The effect of face-to-face meetings and regular personal contact should
not be underestimated even though it is difficult to quantify.
Potential for evolution. Here the record is mixed. Certainly, several of Islah’s policy
positions can be taken as evidence of moderation. The party voted to oust Sheikh Zindani
from its Shura Council, and Islah’s help in drafting the JMP reform platform, which calls
for substantive democratic reforms, suggests that the party’s moderate wing may have
gained the upper hand. The reform platform’s demands include the peaceful rotation of
power, popular empowerment, and an end to corruption. NDI representatives believe that
Islah’s reform positions are not merely tactical directives to bring the party to power, but
a potential shift in the party’s ideological perspective.
At the same time, radical hard-liners in the party, led by Zindani, continue to rail
against the party’s reformers and refuse to engage with Western organizations. NDI implementers
acknowledge that Islah is clearly still an ideological religious party and caution
that observers should not romanticize it. Concerns about Islah’s ultimate intentions may
The JMP members’ reform platform
serves as a model for bridging the
gap between secularists and Islamists
throughout the Arab world.

be legitimate, and it remains to be seen whether the party’s moderate or hard-line faction
will ultimately prevail. But in the short term, Islah may offer the only real alternative to
an increasingly authoritarian government.
Conclusions. NDI engagement with Islah has been most notable in promoting
Islamist-secular cooperation on reform. The Yemen case study is an unparalleled success
in this area. None of the other cases feature similar levels of cooperation between
Islamists and secular parties. Given Yemen’s precarious path toward reform, the JMP is
critical to ensuring that sustained democratic opening remains on the agenda, and despite
the government’s attempts to sow dissent within the coalition, the opposition force
already has begun to demonstrate its ability to oppose the government more coherently
and forward its reform agenda. The Islamist-secular coalition appears to embody precisely
the type of cooperation on reform that many observers deem necessary throughout the
Arab world.
The NDI’s continued engagement with Islah could also strengthen moderates within
the Islamist party. As described by one U.S. democracy advocate, “The worst thing we
can do is isolate the ideological roots of these movements so that they end up merely
supporting and promoting the same ideals with no outside influence, no influx of fresh
ideas. It is essential to introduce a new way of thinking.”35 Islah’s moderation is by no
means ensured, but the party appears to offer a nonviolent, potentially democratic alternative
to the radical Islamic extremism that is deeply embedded in Yemen’s history and
traditions. One democracy promoter noted that September 11 was a defining moment for
Islah, as the party distanced itself from the terrorist attacks, calling them extreme and
not representative of Islah’s vision of Islam. Nonetheless, Yemen’s tribalism and radicalism
are serious challenges for moderates within Islah. Certainly, NDI assistance has helped
moderates in their task, but the end result is by no means assured.