"In a unified state there can be only one ultimate centre of power. Whoever has power controls the army, the security forces and the whole state apparatus. When two states are unified, there has to be a mechanism for determining where ultimate power lies, for turning two centres of power into one."⁵⁹

DESPITE its formal unification, hegemony over the new Yemeni State remained divided between the GPC and YSP, given the extremely limited extent to which the institutions of the PDRY and YAR had been merged. As unity proceeded the divisions between the two systems were to be eradicated by administrative reform and elections. Both political elite's were threatened with the prospect of losing the powers they had enjoyed as separate states, and sought to preserve their interests by engaging in a struggle for hegemony within the new state⁶⁰. However, as the previous chapter showed, in reality the process of determining where the balance of power lay in Yemen had begun years before. The two regimes were entering into unity arrangements with markedly different economic and political records and levels of popular support in their respective territories. As Fred Halliday has written, the resulting northern dominance "has in effect, turned Yemeni unity into that experienced in Germany - a formal fusion on equal terms concealing a take-over by the stronger partner in the process."

President Salih was able to use his relatively stable position, and the comparative weakness of the southern regime after the 1986 civil war, to take the initiative in pressing unification on an uncertain and divided YSP, and received acclaim in much of the north and south for doing so. The argument of this chapter is that once gained, the northern elite never lost its hegemony over the nationalist movement, and was able to progressively assert its hegemony over the developing political process of the united state. Vital to this process were three factors:

1. The GPC's establishment of national-popular hegemony through its leadership of the nationalist movement.
2. The democratic, and non-federal structure of the new state which allowed the GPC to turn the political support of the more populous north into political power.
3. The GPC's ideological flexibility, which enabled the party to pursue the northern political tradition of incorporating key political and social groups into the ruling coalition, a task it achieved more effectively than a Southern elite burdened by its communist past.

At various points in their history, the regimes of the two Yemen's used nationalist rhetoric to enhance their legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens, acknowledging that the idea of 'the Yemen' and of being 'Yemeni' give the prospect of unity popular appeal and mobilising power⁶¹. However, they had only been willing to consider it on their own terms, given that "Unity would have signified that one or the other side was prepared to sacrifice its political value system for the sake of a higher goal."⁶² Therefore when President Salih's unity initiative appeared for the first time to put the goal of Yemeni nationalism above narrow issues of regime stability, he enabled his government to present itself as the expression of what Gramsci described as the 'national-popular' interest. The northern government was able harvest its reward for this bold step in the form of popular support. "Sana'a decided to bypass [the southern leaders] by appealing directly to the people...the huge crowds that greeted Salih in Aden were not the staged demonstrations sometimes organised by the YSP and reflected genuine popular enthusiasm for unity."⁶³

The extent to which the YAR had embraced the aspiration for unity put (probably calculated) pressure on the southern leadership. "Well aware of the south's current weakness, it had identified a window of opportunity which, if missed, might not occur again for many years."⁶⁴ As a consequence of its economic and political difficulties, the YSP faced a unenviable choice: To enter into a unity in which it was the weaker force, but which held out the prospect of greater legitimacy for the regime, or to remain independent and confront mounting popular discontent. The southern leaders were therefore understandably cautious about the pace and direction of arrangements, favouring "a transitional federal formula as a step along the road towards a subsequent merger between the two parts."⁶⁵ However, this enabled Salih's regime to portray the YSP as reluctant partners who were not fully committed to the cause of unity. As Dunbar has written "the government in Sana'a tended to devise unity strategies...creating the impression that the YAR was all for unity and that the PDRY, viewed with almost universal suspicion in the north, was the obstacle to achieving this goal."⁶⁶

This was a tactic that Salih pursued successfully after unification as well. Southern leaders such as Vice-president al-Bayd, unhappy with many political developments in the first years of unity,⁶⁷ registered their unhappiness by leaving Sana'a and returning to the south calling for "a federal regime which would grant more autonomy to the south."⁶⁸ Salih was thus able to portray the YSP as creating a de-facto separation, in preparation for eventual secession, undermining the nationalist project. When war eventually broke out between the two elites, the failure of many elements of southern society to rally to their former leaders illustrated the strength of support for the nationalist project in the south, if not yet direct support for the northern regime⁶⁹. Al-Bayd may have demonstrated an implicit recognition of this fact by only declaring secession after two weeks of fighting, by which time Aden was already almost cut off by northern troops. "He knew it would be unpopular with the Yemeni public; it cost him what support he had among disaffected northerners; and it risked splitting his own party"⁷⁰

The progressive extension of the northern elite's hegemony over the nationalist movement was matched by its increasing command of the political process and institutions of the united state. It was aided in this by the adoption of a non-federal system in which power would be shared, rather than formally distributed, between the two parties⁷¹. In such a system, where a member of one of the two former regimes held a position in the new government, one member from the other was out of a job, causing a surplus of leadership and encouraging competition between parties for positions of authority. The GPC held the advantage in this kind of struggle, given that the government was based in Sana'a, the numerical superiority of its officials, the organisational strength of the party, and the well established northern patrimonial network. According to Hudson, "YSP ministers found that the real decisions in their ministries were being taken by the GPC directors-general. There were not enough YSP or Southern civil servants at lower levels in the ministries in Sana'a to prevent the more numerous northern bureaucrats from dominating them."⁷² This feeling of powerlessness within the new order was one of the major factors pushing the YSP towards secession, and it was intensified after the 1993 election with the incorporation of Islah into the government. Where it wished the GPC could now easily over-ride southern opposition by appealing to the support of this strongly anti-socialist party, whose leader Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar had close links to the president.

Democracy was another important mechanism for the articulation of northern hegemony, given that it's far larger population was guaranteed to given it a decisive majority in the elections. The YSP faced an impossible struggle to undermine the GPC's support in the north, and indeed for a while it looked as if its best course was to merge with its rival. Antipathy towards socialism was widespread among the strongly conservative elements of northern society, and in particular towards a regime known for its economic mismanagement and factionalism. "North Yemeni visitors to the PDRY returned with the impression that whatever its faults, the YAR system had produced obvious progress whereas Aden's brand of Marxism had transformed the PDRY into an economic backwater with limited prospects for advancement."⁷³

The different parties did campaign to increase their popularity in constituencies where they had not previously been represented. However, the results of the 1993 elections demonstrated that the political allegiance of the two communities remained regionally divided. In theory this represented a continuation of the status quo, with the YSP continuing as a partner in government. Nevertheless, with the inclusion of Islah into the ruling coalition the government "ultimately resembled the coexistence of conservative and socialist elements that had prevailed in the YAR under the GPC umbrella"⁷⁴, in which the GPC could dominate by playing its partners off against each other.

The GPC was set up as an 'Egyptian' style political organisation to represent a multitude of opinions and interests within one body. Within the YAR it had played this role virtually unchallenged, and now in the united Yemen the GPC continued to function in a similar way, using its hegemony over the political process to mould the pliable form of the new political system into one similar to its northern predecessor. The tactic of co-opting leaders from different sections of the community has been extended to the south, for example a number of supporters of the formerly exiled southern leader, Ali Nasir Muhammad, ran for the party. As Detalle writes "In putting together their State, the GPC looked for persons well rooted in their communities, with party affiliation taking second place."⁷⁵ This strategy did not bear great electoral fruit in 1993 principally because, up until a short time before the polls, it seemed likely that the YSP might actually merge with the GPC. Certainly, with both parties still at least nominally in power together, a vote for the YSP was a vote for the unity government, rather than a vote against the GPC as such. However, the GPC benefited from its strategy to a far greater extent after the YSP boycott in the 1997 parliamentary elections, with several former members of the YSP successfully elected under the GPC banner⁷⁶.

President Salih has also sought to bring southerners into leading governmental positions. At present there is a southern Prime Minister - Dr Faraj bin Ghanem, Vice President, Minister for Legal Affairs, Minister for Planning, and Interior Minister. Sheikh Tariq Abdullah, founder of the 'Local Government Party', argues that although the men appointed to these positions do not have a real power base in southern society, their selection by the president is an attempt to overcome the lack of a genuinely representative southern leadership with whom to work, after the final failure and dispersion of the YSP old guard during the war of 1994.⁷⁷ It may also be a manoeuvre aimed at reducing the influence of the less progressive members of the northern elite, although Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar was re-elected parliamentary speaker, and Sheikh Tariq al-Fadli the leader of the 'Afghan' guerrillas - a fundamentalist group - was a surprising appointment to the consultative council⁷⁸.

As Dr S Abd al-Aziz al-Saqqaf, editor of the 'The Yemen Times', and himself a co-optee onto the Consultative Council, said in interview "The President's ideology is to stay in power. He is a very clever man and successfully co-opts all the elders in society, from the tribes, heads of newspapers, military, to business men and the senior families."⁷⁹ However, at the same time Saqqaf also believes that "This enables the President to neglect the population and hold on to the leaders." In moving to the conclusion that Salih's regime has achieved hegemony over the Yemeni State, it must be asked whether the sacrifices that a strategy of broad coalition building entails for the weaker elements of society are sustainable, or whether at the height of the President's political hegemony, the limits to this strategy are being revealed.

Copyright © Michael Welton 1997

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