SANAA, 24 September 2006 — Yemen’s opposition slammed yesterday as “illegal” the win of veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the country’s presidential poll after final results were announced.
“We reject this result which is illegal, and came through a presidential order,” said Ali Al-Sarari, the spokesman of the opposition Common Forum, which had fielded former Oil Minister Faisal Bin-Shamlan to challenge Saleh.
“We have documents that prove the forging of two million votes, which were for Shamlan but were counted in favor of Saleh,” he said, shortly after the results of the polls were confirmed officially.
Saleh garnered 77.17 percent of a total 5.37 million votes, compared with 21.82 percent received by Bin-Shamlan.
