The Five Billion Dollar Question (By Taimoor)

(This is a picture of Ali Abdullah Saleh the president/dictator/strongman (bil arabi:al-haakim) of Yemen. His face is everywhere in Yemen. Even people who don't like him often find it politic to display him. His picture is the only image more common than the coca-cola symbol (bil arabi: Koka-Kola)

I work at the NDI, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, in Yemen. It is an NGO created and funded partly by the United States government and partly by an assortment of other mostly western interests. The purpose of the group is to spread and foster democracy in the world and suffice it to say that NDI Yemen has its work cut out for it.
One has to admit though that the organization sounds a tad sinister. Professor Lo recently asked me if I thought that NDI, with its Western backing and its admittedly nebulous goal of “spreading democracy” was truly acting in the best interests of the Yemeni people. To him I said, perhaps a little defensively, that NDI was far from Bush Doctrine. NDI focuses on the development of democratic institutions such as Universal suffrage, party plurality, anti-corruption, election monitoring, constituency responsibility, and women’s involvement with and in the government rather than on the implementation of particular legislation, including those regarding international relations. “Democracy does not look the same for everyone”, one of their pamphlets read.
I told Professor Lo that as long as NDI was fostering democratic institutions and making the government of Yemen more responsive to its citizens, why should it matter who backs the organization? For the most part, I still agree.
My problem with NDI concerns not its motives, which as I said I don’t believe are truly relevant, but with the success or lack thereof of its programs on administrative change. Yemen today is overwhelmingly controlled by one party, the ruling GPC (General People’s Congress Party) a political party that has traditionally believed in inclusion rather than plurality and as such which labels itself moderate and stands for pretty much anything that anyone in Yemen could possibly be interested in: Capitalism and Socialism, Islam and Secularism, Traditional tribal values and Modernism, Women’s rights and not-so-much-for-Women’s-rights. In practice though, the party, run by current president of Yemen for over 28 years, Ali Abdullah Saleh, effectively maintains itself through a network of bribes and kickbacks which sap the budget of the Yemeni government while failing to accomplish any of the real, needed administrative changes. Think of the GPC as a Wal-mart on Christmas Eve: a lot advertised, but very little offered.
Though admittedly, the electoral system in Yemen has, in recent years, improved considerably, a decent amount of corruption does still exist. In many poling locations for example, the GPC controlled police and military are seen carrying guns into election centers, effectively intimidating voters. The government, a.i. the GPC, has jurisdiction over the State’s religious establishment. I recently found out that the Imams of Yemeni Mosques are only allowed to lead prayers, while the Friday khutba, or sermon, is given by a separate individual, a state sponsored Kaatib. It is not surprising then that many “religious scholars” are seen to support the GPC come election time even over the moderately Islamist Islah party. A lot, though not all, the media is controlled by the government, as is the cell phone company which infamously sent a text message to all cell phones near election time last election proclaiming that Islamic Jurists support Ali Abdullah Saleh, clearly breaking the governments own no mixing politics and religion law.
And yet despite all of this, it can not be denied that the government has made some positive strides in electoral plurality. Military and police influence in elections have been significantly reduced in the 2003 as opposed to the 1997 elections, as have ballot reading irregularities, and some of the grosser violations. For perhaps the first time, the coalition of the Yemeni political parties put forth a real candidate rather than a straw man, a candidate that managed to win (according to official estimates) 28% of the total vote, an almost revolutionary high number for Yemen.
So is Yemen on the right track to legitimate democracy? The World Bank seems to think so if its 5 billion dollars in loans and grants to Yemen in 2005 is any indication. This comes after a period of reduced funding following the last election due to governmental corruption.
A wise man once said, “Follow the money.” And here, I believe, we have found it. Yemen is the poorest Arab country, and in fact one of the very poorest countries in the world. It has a little oil, only about three or four years of confirmed easily assessable oil reserves left, and considering that about 75% of the budget of the government comes from oil revenue, it is easy to see the yawning cliff up ahead. Every penny, given the circumstances, helps. One can’t help wondering whether the GPC’s promises of “electoral reform” are kosher or merely a long con.
Have election reforms affected the essential nature of the government? The GPC continues to have a monopoly, a two-thirds majority in parliament as well as a very powerful president with all the connections and political capital that the Yemeni government’s budget can afford. Corruption runs rampant in the Parliament, and is even institutionalized to the point that, my NDI boss S.T. says that one has to become corrupt to remain within the system or be forced out. Opposition leaders are hesitant to criticize the GPC too strongly for fear of retaliation. They are also hesitant to boycott elections to draw attention to the illegitimacy of the system, for after all the GPC with its vast and varied demographics could easily branch off a few more political parties to make the election an interesting race. Islah, the second largest political party in Yemen, and the only real challenge to the GPC, was actually originally created by and supportive of the GPC to effectively “crowd out” the Yemeni Socialism Party while still providing the trappings of a legitimate democracy.
Very little real administrative change has come from the limited electoral reforms of the GPC, while the few tangible results of the system serve to legitimize or at least offer a veneer of legitimacy to the system in the eyes of the International community, as can be seen from the World Bank’s recent five billion dollars in aid. This money, as well as the support of many Nations, including the United States which fears a rise in terrorism from Yemen if Saleh’s administrative power is reduced, puts the GPC in a truly enviable position: the appearance and rewards of being a democracy, without any of the usual concomitant loss of dictatorial power.
I asked Dr. S.T. whether he thought that NDI’s policies granted undeserved legitimacy to an illegitimate system, or whether they were actually conducive to change. He paused and then said, “Both.” Having worked at NDI for almost three weeks now, I don’t have a better answer.