Yemen accepts monitors for April poll

Mon Dec 27, 2010

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to hold the country's parliamentary elections in the presence of international monitors.

"We accept foreign observers, and also reiterate our call to our brothers in the parties of the 'Common Front' to take an active part in the poll and not to quibble over trivia," AFP quoted Saleh as saying in a speech in the southern port of Aden on Sunday.

The Yemeni president was quoted as "unreservedly" inviting non-government groups "from Yemen and brotherly and friendly countries to monitor the elections.”

The parliamentary elections will be held on April 27, 2011 even if the opposition parties boycott them over an amendment to the electoral law, Saleh went on to say.

He urged the opposition, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMPs), to participate in the elections. He also called on all political sides “to stay away from political plots and obstinacy."

The Dec. 11 amendment sparked an opposition sit-in and charged that the General People's Conference (GPC), the president's ruling party, had violated a 2009 accord to open dialogue on political reforms.

The electoral law stipulated that the high electoral commission be composed of judges rather than delegates from parties represented in parliament, as was previously the case.

The opposition JMPs vowed on Dec. 13 to boycott Yemen's upcoming parliamentary elections, and called for protest against the ruling party.

On Feb. 23, 2009, the GPC and JMPs had inked an agreement to delay the parliament elections previously scheduled for April 2009 to April 2011. However, both sides have accused each other of shrinking in implementing the agreement, which caused a long political crisis.

Saleh has been Yemen's president since 1990.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/157326.html.