By: Ahmed Abu Maher

Day after day, year after year, Yemen is in dire need to build a real state like all other countries with effective, strong and efficient institutions that fulfill for citizens their aspirations and hopes and open up decent living opportunities for all people of the same nation in north, south, east and west. These things are complementary to the new state project that the Yemenis drew in the Comprehensive National Dialogue Conference in a federal state with social justice and equality between citizens in everything, including the equitable distribution of wealth among all rich and poor regions of Yemen.

On the basis of this logic and vision, the Yemeni Islah Party has worked in all aspects of life in order to reach this desired goal, whether by presenting various projects for building the state, its organs and institutions, or its form and system, reaching its vision of good governance, which it presented among the rest of the projects in the Comprehensive National Dialogue Conference 2013 - 2014.

The visions related to the various public issues that the Yemeni Islah Party presented to this conference were not the result of a plentiful theorization or a political excess and a competition with the rest of the other national forces as much as it was an urgent need required by the Yemeni reality after the state and its institutions were slacked, confiscated, bequeathed, personalized and deviated from the foundations on which the Yemeni revolution was based, September 26 and October 14, or foundations for the re-realization of national unity in 1990.

Where Yemen went through historical decisive stages, starting from the Yemeni unity in 1990 and passing through the war of summer 1994, which was really the main slide for all the exacerbation of Yemen's problems and diverting the path of unity and the homeland towards conflicts, bequeathing, and dwarfing, reaching the peaceful youth revolution in February 2011.

All of these stations were working to enlighten the Yemenis of their need for real good governance that would work to restore the glory and place of Yemen among nations and peoples, and this matter could only come through reforming the basic governance structure and establishing a fair, transparent and strong rational governance in which all the people of the homeland participated without exclusion, confiscation, personalization, or bequeathing under a just republican regime for which the general or corrective revolutions were launched.

After we discussed in previous episodes the vision of the Islah Party in the form of the state, as well as state building, in this episode we will address the vision of the Islah Party in good governance.

There is no doubt that good governance is the goal and hope of every normal person or ambitious political force. The creation of a system of good governance in any country considers the main lever for the renaissance of peoples and the strength of states, and from this standpoint, the vision of the Islah Party started in this, especially since the Islah Party today is the most powerful political force in Yemen, where the necks of Yemenis stretch to it, to get Yemen out of these darknesses, to which Yemen was driven by the recklessness and corruption of the previous regimes.

The Islah Party presented its vision in this section in a contribution by the Islah Party to reform the flabby system of governance in order for the Yemenis to agree on it and reach a mechanism for reforming the homeland’s pillar and its support, after studying and auditing and the reality of a practical experience that extended nearly three decades of the Islah Party’s life in which it participated in all aspects of the political life of the state, the authority, the opposition and the mass work, and were not just absurd theorizations without emanating from the lived reality.

The Islah Party’s contribution to the state and in all of the aforementioned fields has given it practical experience fall upon places of wounds to diagnose it the optimal diagnosis that it summarized in this field and was consistent with its general visions in its statute upon which the party was founded.

Where in its vision, the Party has identified two main theoretical and practical elements in the principle of good governance, a theoretical vision followed by a working mechanism for implementation and basic requirements for implementing the system of good governance, and then the mechanisms that work to implement these requirements. Under the first item, the Party identified 15 basic points required by the reality of this ruling to prepare the common ground for the implementation of this vision, all of which are extremely important, the keening of the Islah Party for the integrity of the public life of the homeland through this mechanism.

First: Basic requirements for implementing a good governance system

 

1) Reconstructing the statutes to be based on institutions with clear competencies and powers, separation of [executive, legislative, and judicial] powers and a clear definition of the relationship between them, in order to prevent the encroachment of one authority over another, and prevent the monopoly or abuse of power by any person, class or any body.

2) Restore balance in the relationship between the state and society, work to activate and integrate the role of society with the state’s authority and agencies, and provide mechanisms that enable them to implement the principles of good governance.

3) Adopting a decentralization system that is appropriate to the conditions of Yemeni society, embodies the foundations and rules of good governance, and achieves its goals.

4) Reconsidering the structure and function of the state’s administrative apparatus, defining its objectives, and preparing it to play its role in implementing the state’s public policies with greater effectiveness and at a lower cost.

5) Laying down the rules and foundations that prevent the emergence of political crises and conflicts, which are considered a renewed factor of confusion that impedes the state from carrying out its duties and limits the participation of society and the private sector in construction and comprehensive development.

6) Adopting a national project for the advancement of the state and society in which political and societal forces participate in its formulation, and the state's administrative apparatus, the private sector and civil society organizations will be integrable in its implementation.

7) Establishing principles and mechanisms of good governance on the Islamic reference to ensure individual support and full societal interaction.

8) The independence of the judiciary and enabling it to play its role in implementing the law, adjudicating disputes and protecting rights and freedoms away from the influence of those with influence in the authority and society.

9) Exploiting general means of education such as (family education - educational institutions - youth institutions - media and culture - means of guidance and counseling... etc.) in order for creating a culture and values that affirm the bonds of brotherhood and complementarity among Yemenis and to promote the principle of coexistence and acceptance of others within the framework of a single homeland and promote a culture of respect Law, constitution, and preservation of money, property and public facilities.

10) Neutralizing the military and security institution from political action, not allowing any special hegemony over this institution, directing its energies to protect the homeland, its sovereignty and independence, and providing security and stability to citizens.

11) Harnessing the means of power and sources of wealth for the benefit of the people, limiting the spread of weapons, not allowing the possession of heavy weapons except for the state, and dealing with all citizens without discrimination or favoritism.

12) Issuing a law that organizes the peaceful transfer of power and defines the positions that are subject to circulation and those that are subject to efficiency and competition, to prevent immortalization and bequeathing of leadership positions and to prevent multiple jobs and responsibilities for one person.

13) Implementing justice in approving and implementing development projects, criminalizing the use of public money in political action and not allowing selective dealings with regions and bodies.

14) Deepening the culture of belonging to the homeland and taking care of its capabilities, reviving the values of tolerance and reconciliation in society, and fighting calls that glorify or call for ethnocentrism.

15) Laying down rules that guarantee equal opportunities for citizens to invest, work and benefit from wealth.

 

In view of these requirements, they are the depth of the ground that the stage actually requires, especially today's stage in the face of the Houthi coup, where the stage of the collapse of systems or states is considered an essential stage for rebuilding homelands soundly from scratch and it requires more effort, sacrifice, patience, perseverance, capabilities.

The conditions upon which rational governments and rational systems of governance are formed in such circumstances are often the circumstances of transitions, whether in wars, establishing states, or correcting imbalances after confronting coups, because they are imposed by a new reality, construction after demolition, and agreement after the diaspora.

The Yemeni Islah Party was keen to build the state and its institutions and its rule stemmed from its statute that it has been following from its inception until today and as a matter of the national duty in which it is considered at the forefront, and also as a matter of its moral and religious duty to build and reconstruct the land in an optimal way to achieve the goal of the people whom they trust and in its capabilities more than their confidence in the rest of the other powers.

Where Islah Party has assumed this moral responsibility at every turn of the homeland’s turns, and therefore it is always at the forefront on the one hand and even in the forefront of media topics, even though most of them are defaming in its right based on nourishment of hatred and incitement by other regional and local powers that find in the Islah Party an impenetrable dam in front of their plans in Yemen.

Today, the post-coup political situations have increased the urgent demands for the implementation of this Islahian vision on the ground after they have been agreed upon by all national forces keen to build Yemen the optimal building away from discomforts, hunting mistakes, and settle accounts so that all these forces live in a safe position that enables them to implement their programs and effectively contribute with the rest of the partners in this construction, away from the language of betrayal, exclusion, and incitement. For everyone to live is part of the safety of the homeland, building its state and its rule, otherwise, everyone is considered extinct or displaced by backward and brutal forces working to implement a malicious agenda in the homeland for the benefit of other powers from which everyone will not be spared, including the silent, accomplices, instigators, the corrupt who destroy this giver country.

There should also be implementation mechanisms for this vision in order for it to proceed safely towards implementation through everyone's cooperation, activating the various state institutions, purifying them from corruption, and laying sound foundations for their activation, which is what the Islah Party’s vision brought about from the second part of it.

 

These mechanisms are represented in several points, and under them are complementary and interpreted sub-points that are also required by the nature of the implementation phase for it.

Secondly: Mechanisms for implementing rational governance:

1) The rule of law and the balance between authority and responsibility

2) Applying accountability and transparency

3) Combating corruption

4) Equal opportunities for citizens and achieving justice and equality

5) Expanding popular participation

6) Efficiency of public administration

7) The role of civil society organizations

8) The role of the parties

9) Foreign policy foundations

 

Under each of these clauses, other explanatory clauses explain how the practical steps are to implement this vision on the ground.

Given all these demands and how the Islah Party dealt with them from an early time through its activities and practices on the ground, whether through the Parliament platform, participation in the government, or through its internal institutions, its steps are not without its implementation on the ground. Its lack of control over matters in the country through the government prevented it from being able to bring about change in it or to implement it, and often the one who has in hand the implementation mechanisms is the government that acquires state institutions and adopts them within the programs of the government and state.

The personalization that has ruled the country over the past decades is itself that has created a wide gap between what the people aspire to and the practices on the ground that have produced a paralyzed reality and fertility for the militias that have been nourished through the lack of practicing the institutionalization and rational governance, which has made the whole state with its institutions based on the individual pillar and not on the institution's pillar.

These demands and visions presented by the Islah Party from time to time, or its programs that work to build a free and dear homeland, may not have liked many local and regional forces, so everyone cooperated to direct their arrows towards the Islah Party, on which the Yemeni people rely on bringing it out of the darkness of crises into the light of freedom, independence, the state and institution building.

The National Dialogue Conference, on which the Yemeni people pinned their hopes, did not come to an end so that the coup was done against it and the state and everyone paid the high price for that, and the Islah Party was the party that paid the greatest price and the greatest bill.

With regard to the Islah Party, the role did not end at the Houthi coup against the state, and these visions came to be viewed as a theory from the past, rather, it proceeded in its practical struggle in the field, waging war and challenge beside the state, strengthened its strength and preserved it from collapsing and falling in order for contributing to the implementation of its vision of the state's form and system and the strengthening of its rational governance.