SANAA, 9 July 2006 — Yemen’s opposition candidate for the September presidential election, Faisal Bin Shamlan, submitted his candidacy to Parliament yesterday, three days after the country’s president publicly mocked his nomination.
Bin Shamlan, 72, was accompanied by leading officials from the main opposition parties when he arrived at Parliament to register his candidacy.
Five major opposition parties have jointly nominated the independent politician and former Oil Minister Bin Shamlan as their presidential candidate.
Grouped under the umbrella of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) coalition, the five parties include Islah party and a communist party that ruled South Yemen for 12 years before the country merged with North Yemen in 1990.
On Wednesday, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh poured scorn on the opposition parties for picking Bin Shamlan as their candidate.
“Leaders of the (opposition) parties looked for an outsider to represent them in the presidential elections, and they said he was honest and clean-handed,” Saleh said in a feisty speech.
“Aren’t there honest and clean-handed politicians among the leaders of those parties?” the 64-year-old veteran leader said.
The opposition candidate refused to comment on Saleh’s remarks.
Bin Shamlan is widely respected, particularly in the southern provinces, for his public stands against corruption.
After reunification, he was appointed oil minister in 1994, but he resigned one year later to protest corruption in the oil industry sector. Yemen is a small oil producer which pumps some 470,000 barrels of oil per day.
Incumbent Saleh, who has been at the helm since 1978, announced on May 24 that he would seek re-election for a new seven-year term, retracting a promise to step down he made in July last year.
The presidential vote is due to be held simultaneously with the municipal elections in the first half of September. No exact date has yet been set for polling day.
