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Yemeni Municipal Elections Draw More Than 21,000 Candidates
SANAA, Feb 2 (News Agencies) - More than 21,000 candidates will be standing for municipal elections to be held on February 21st in Yemen, with independents accounting for more than one-third of them, according to preliminary figures obtained Friday.
The election will also include a referendum to lengthen the terms both of the national president and of parliamentary deputies, both measures that are opposed by opposition parties.
The president's term would be extended to seven years from five, with the possibility of one additional term. Parliamentary terms would be extended to six years from four.
A source close to the electoral commission said 35% of the candidates for the approximately 7,000 seats are independents.
They are followed in descending order by candidates from the ruling General People's Congress (GPC), the opposition Islamist Yemeni Islah Party, the opposition Yemen Socialist Party and others.
The source said the number of women who had registered was small, but did not give any figures.
The campaign in the country of nearly 16 million people is to begin on Monday and will run until February 18th.
A total of 60,000 police and soldiers, as well as 30,000 reservists, have been mobilized to ensure order, with election related violence having already hit the country.
On January 10th, armed men shot dead nine Muslims as they knelt in prayer at a mosque north of the capital after a stormy debate over candidates for the elections, the first such polls since Yemen's re-unification in 1990.
On January 27th, gunmen kidnapped a police officer in a dispute between different parties over registration for the elections.
Members of the Islah party and the GPC traded gunfire the same day in the northern province of Hodeida.
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