Ali Abdullah SALEH

Party: General People’s Congress (GPC)
Campaign slogan 2006: "A new Yemen, a better future"[1]
The party of president Ali Abdullah Saleh, leader of the country for 28 years, is the ruling political party in Yemen and formerly the ruling party of the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen).
Saleh is member of the Sanhan tribe, part of the powerful Hashed tribal confederation that has great influence especially in the North of the country.
Saleh, 64, was elected president of North Yemen by a constituent assembly, after the June 1978 assassination of president Ahmad al-Ghashmi. After Yemen's unification in 1990, Saleh launched cautious reforms towards a multy-party system. Legislative elections were organized in 1993 and 1997 and a presidential ballot in 1999. Saleh’s only rival in the 1999 election was Najib Qahtan al-Shaabi, a member of Saleh's own party. Shaabi won 3.7% of the vote.
In the 2006 campaign Ali Abdullah Saleh “sticks to protection of the revolution, the republic, the unity and democracy where the historic accomplishments have great value. He focuses on the unity and democracy achieved under his rule. Saleh still has large influence backed by administration of the state and it’s extends throughout Yemen with his support by the power of the army and security, the public property and the media.”[2]


Faisal Bin SHAMLAN

Party: Joint Meeting Parties (JMP)
Campaign slogan: "A president for Yemen, not Yemen for the president"[3]
The Joint Meeting Parties is a coalition formed in 2002 between the Islamist Islah party, the Yemeni Socialist Party, and three other minor parties (the Nasserist Unionist party, the Al-Haq party, and the Popular Forces Union party) to compete together against the ruling GPC. This unusual coalition between the Islamists and the Socialists has become stronger during the campaign after struggling in the beginning to establish a common program and to define a candidate. It was still uncertain during the campaign if the Islah party was still allied to the Saleh’s GPC, with whom it had collaborated in the 1994 civil war against the Yemeni Socialist Party.
Faisal Othman Bin Shamlan, 72, candidate of the JMP for the presidential office, was appointed after the independence of the South in 1967 as a minister for construction, then a manager of Aden oil refinery and became after the civil war in 1994 minister of oil in united Yemen. Shamlan also served as a parliamentary deputy later on.
Shamlan holds Saleh responsible for the soaring corruption and the disastrous economic situation of the country. His party’s program treats issues such as poverty, unemployment, corruption and the poor infrastructure. “Political, administrative and economic reforms, upgrading the level of health services and social and international policies top the promised made by Bin Shamlan in his electoral program.”[4]


Yassin Abdo Saeed NO’AMAN

Party: National Opposition Council (NOC)
Yassin Abdo Saeed graduated in business administration from the Faculty of Commerce at Egypt’s Ain Shams University. He has held numerous posts: Youth and sport consultant, Supreme Commission for Election and Referendum (SCER) member and currently is Deputy Minister of Social Affairs and Labor.[5]


Ahmed Abdullah Majeed AL-MAJIDI

Party: Independent Candidate
Ahmed Abdullah Majeed, 59, holds an advanced diploma in political and social science from Moscow, Russia. He became a Member of Parliament for the Republic of Yemen in 1990 and was appointed governor of Ibb from 1991 to 1994.[6]


Fathi Ahmed Al-AZAB

Party: Independent Candidate
Fathi Ahmed is a Faculty of science teacher at Sana’a University and head of the student bureau affiliated with the Yemeni Reform Party (YRP). He is also assistant secretary-general of the YRP’s capital branch.[7]