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Photo Credit: Khaled Nazeef
Delegates from Yemen’s National Dialogue today approved a new electoral system after 44 of the 45 members of the team tasked with planning the electoral system voted in favor of the plan. Under the new process, Yemen’s parliament will be elected through a closed proportional system. The plan will also allow for candidates to run even if they are not affiliated with a political party, as well as stipulates that “women hold not less than 30 per cent in the elected legislatures.”
The original proposal for the laws was part of the 363 directives six working groups outlined as part of the second session of Yemen’s National Dialogue, which went from June 8 to July 8 and also resulted in proposals to ensure freedom of thought, opinion, and expression, as well as to end the death penalty for Yemenis under 18 and to criminalize creating armed militias independent of the government.
Also in Yemen, President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi pardoned Abdelela Shayie, a journalist who had been imprisoned since 2010 for “helping al-Qaeda and U.S. born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.” He was originally sentenced to five years for what Amnesty International called “uncovering information on U.S. complicity in attacks on the country.” U.S. President Barack Obama formerly put pressure on former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011 to keep Shayie in custody.
