Yemen

V

Government

Yemen is governed under a constitution adopted in 1991, and subsequently amended. The amended constitution states that Yemen is a democratic, Islamic republic, and that Sharia (Islamic law) is the basis of all Yemeni legislation.

Before unification, North Yemen was governed by a benign authoritarian regime dominated by the military, and South Yemen functioned as a centralized socialist party-state. Politics opened up with the creation of the Republic of Yemen in 1990, and the number of freely functioning parties, lobbying groups, and communications outlets multiplied. The 1993 election was the first multiparty election on the Arabian Peninsula, and the first in which women could vote. The vast majority of Yemenis participated.

A

Executive

Yemen’s head of state is a president, who is popularly elected to a seven-year term. The president appoints a vice president, prime minister, and cabinet of ministers.

B

Legislative

Yemen has a bicameral (two-chambered) legislature. The 111 members of the upper house, called the Shura Council, are appointed by the president. The 301 members of the lower house, called the House of Representatives, are popularly elected to six-year terms.

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C

Political Parties

The General People’s Congress (GPC), the former ruling party of North Yemen, has held a dominant position in the government since the first elections in unified Yemen, in 1993. The main opposition parties are the conservative Islamic Reform Grouping (al-Islah) and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), the former ruling party of South Yemen.

VI

History

With the rise of the great ancient civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and along the Mediterranean Sea, historic Yemen became an important overland trade link between these civilizations and the highly prized luxury goods of South Arabia and points east and south. As a result, several pre-Islamic trading kingdoms grew up astride an incense trading route that ran northwest between the foothills and the edge of the desert. First, there was the Minaean kingdom, which lasted from about 1200 to 650 bc, and whose prosperity was due mainly to the trade of frankincense and spices. The large and prosperous kingdom of Saba’ (Sheba), founded in the 10th century bc and ruled by Bilqis, the queen of Sheba, among others, was known for its efficient farming and extensive irrigation system built around a large dam constructed at Ma‘rib. Farther south and east, in the region that would later become South Yemen, were the Qataban and Hadhramaut kingdoms, which also participated in the incense trade. The last of the great pre-Islamic kingdoms was that of Himyar, which lasted from about the 1st century bc until the ad 500s (see Himyarites). At their heights, the Sabaean and Himyarite kingdoms encompassed most of historic Yemen.

Because of their prominence and prosperity, the states and societies of ancient Yemen were collectively called Arabia Felix in Latin, meaning “Happy Arabia.” However, when the Romans occupied Egypt in the 1st century bc they made the Red Sea their primary avenue of commerce. With the decline of the caravan routes, the kingdoms of southern Arabia lost much of their wealth and fell into obscurity. Red Sea traffic sailed past Yemen, and what seaborne commerce Yemen engaged in had little impact on the country’s interior. The Tihāmah region, which was hot, humid, swept by sandstorms, and clouded in haze, isolated the comparatively well-watered and populous highlands. The weakened Yemeni regimes that followed the trading kingdoms were unable to prevent the occupation of Yemen by the Christian Abyssinian kingdom (modern Ethiopia) in the 4th and early 6th centuries ad and by the Sassanids of Persia in the later 6th century, just before the rise of Islam.

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