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Arabia
Violence Taints Yemeni General Election
2003-04-27
EFL
But then, violence taints most things in Yemen, doesn't it?
Yemenis crowded polling stations on Sunday to vote for their third parliament since the country's unification in 1990, keen to show off their democratic credentials after the U.S.-led war on Iraq.
See? We're OK, don't JDAM us
Despite calls by officials and Muslim clerics to shun violence, witnesses said at least four Yemenis were wounded in shootouts between rival candidates.
Ballots, not bullets - you guys always get those backwards
The impoverished Arab country, with a population of 20 million, is eager to prove to the United States that its public has a say in governance, particularly after the war that toppled Iraq's Saddam Hussein. "Democracy is the savior of the rulers and the people," President Ali Abdullah Saleh told reporters after casting his ballot.
"So why don't you Merkins go lookin' at Zim-Bob-We or someplace. They're much worse than we are..."
Yemen is home to many Islamist militants and sympathizers of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Around 8.9 million people are registered to vote, 40 percent of them women, a figure which is relatively high compared to Yemen's conservative Gulf Arab neighbors. Officials forecast turnout at about 70 percent.
Now that sounds downright progressive
Armed disputes have marred previous polls in Yemen, where many people still carry weapons almost a decade after the end of a 1994 civil war. Fighting in a 1997 parliamentary poll and a municipal election in 2001 left 31 people dead.
Posted by:Frank G

#2  I met a lot of Yemenis when I lived in Zanzibar. Tough bastards, they are... always carry around a not-so-ornamental dagger on their jelabas. Yemen's also unique in that it's the only fertile area on the Arabian peninsula. BTW, are you sure about them being so ethnically "pure"? I seem to recall a lot of cross-cultural love contact between Yemenis and East Africans, kind of like Omanis.
Posted by: The Marmot   2003-04-27 11:59:10  

#1  I can't recall the statistical record, but Yemen was found to have the largest number of firearms, per capita, of any country in the world.

See: www.yementimes.com The Editor answers e-mail questions. Yemenis, or at least the educated classes, appear to be looking for post-WW2 realignment.

Some anthropologists view Yemenis as the Arab demographic group, with the least inter-mixing with other races and cultural groups. They are sort of like the "Aryans" of Arabia.
Posted by: Anonon   2003-04-27 11:16:36  

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