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Bloodshed Continues As Yemenis Go To Polls After Violence-Marred Campaign
SANAA, Feb 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Bloodshed continued on election day Tuesday as Yemenis voted heavily in the first local elections since the country was unified in 1990, and in a referendum to extend the mandates of the president and MPs.
After initial reports that the vote had passed off peacefully, a Yemeni security official said 10 persons were killed and another 21 injured, including two soldiers and two security officials, in gunfire and an explosion, according to reports from around the country, capping off a campaign marred by bloodshed.
The incidents occurred in the cities of Ebb, Hodeida, Dhamar and Taez.
The BBC reports that armed clashes broke out in two voting districts between supporters of the Islamic opposition Islah party and backers of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's ruling General People's Congress.
Also, opposition figures claimed earlier that there had been voting irregularities.
The some 18,000 voting stations in Yemen's 20 provinces had originally been due to close at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT), but most constituencies were granted a two-hour extension to allow electors ample time to vote, the electoral committee said.
No turnout figure was immediately available following the closure of the polls.
An official from the electoral committee said voting in 86 voting stations had been postponed to a later date because of "technical problems."
Queues of men in traditional dress with jambiya daggers stuck in their belts, and women wearing veils, formed outside polling stations in Sanaa as soon as they opened at 8:00 am (0500 GMT). Polling in the capital took place amid tight security.
In the Dlah Hamda suburb of Sanaa, the flow of voters dropped considerably in the afternoon, with most Yemenis preferring to take up the national pastime at that hour - chewing qat, a light narcotic.
At the entry of each polling station a list of candidates was posted, showing their political allegiance and emblem, also printed on the ballot papers to help illiterates, who make up a substantial part of the 5.6 million electorate.
Saleh's ruling General People's Congress (GPC) chose a horse as an emblem, the Islamic reform party Al-Islah went for a sun, while local candidates' emblems varied from a donkey to a pen.
Saleh's GPC has proposed constitutional amendments, rejected by the opposition, that lengthen the presidential term from five to seven years, for a maximum of two mandates, and that of members of the 301-member parliament to six years, from the current four.
The opposition has accused Saleh, who has been in power since 1978, of trying to impose one-party rule.
The proposed amendments also grant legislative powers to a consultative council formed in 1997 and whose 60 members are appointed by the president.
In tandem with the referendum, 120 women are running for office in the local elections out of a field of more than 23,000 candidates for 7,032 seats.
The aim of the vote - the first since the former North and South Yemen were unified in May 1990 - is to introduce a measure of decentralization in the country of 17.7 million people.
The district and provincial councils are to work out development plans on a regional level.
Wearing a "miwaz", a material wrapped around the waist, which resembles a Scottish kilt, Ahmed al-Makhzi, 32, was one of the first to hurry in to vote in Sanaa's 13th constituency, for an extension of the presidential mandate.
"The country has known stability and prosperity under President Saleh," he said.
"I voted 'yes' because I think the president has committed the country to following a good path," said 22-year-old engineer Sultan Sreihi.
Yemen is however one of the poorest countries on the planet and deadly armed clashes between powerful tribes has left around 20 dead in the election campaign alone.
The electors, aged 18 and over, cast three ballots - red, green and white - one for the referendum, the two others for the local elections.
President Saleh voted at a polling station in the 11th district of the capital.
"We will accept the verdict of the polls whatever they may be," Saleh vowed after casting his three votes. "We will accept the wish of the people even if they say no to amendments to the constitution."
The 59-year-old president has been in power since 1990, and won the first presidential election by popular vote in September 1999.
The BBC reports that some opposition parties boycotted the elections, claiming harassment and vote rigging by the government.
The main opposition groups, particularly the southern Socialist Party of Yemen, and the Al-Islah party, participated in the elections but complained in a letter to the electoral committee of irregularities in several voting stations, including ballot papers missing out certain candidates' names and printing errors with the emblem.
They called for votes in these polling stations to ruled invalid.
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