Yemeni Socialist Party

Yemeni Socialist Party الحزب الاشتراكي اليمني
Leader	Yasin Said Numan
Former leaders	Abdul Fattah Ismail, Ali Nasser Muhammad, Ali Salim al-Beidh
Founded	1978
Ideology	Socialism formerly Marxism–Leninism and Communism
Political position	Left-wing
National affiliation	Socialist International
Parliament of Yemen	8 / 301
Website
http://www.aleshteraki.net
Politics of Yemen Political parties Elections

The Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) (الحزب الاشتراكي اليمني, al-Hizb al-Ishtiraki al-Yamani) is a political party in Yemen.

It was the ruling party in South Yemen, the only Marxist Arab state, before unification in 1990. Now it is an opposition party in the unified Yemen.

General secretaries

• Abdul Fattah Ismail (1978 – 1980)
• Ali Nasser Muhammad (1980 – 1986)
• Ali Salim al-Beidh (1986 – 1994)
• Ali Saleh Obad (Moqbel) (1994 – 2005)
• Dr. Yasin Said Numan (2005 – present)

History

In Yemen, radical and progressive ideas appeared in the 1940s and 1950s with the first waves of Yemeni students abroad. Political organizations in this Muslim country emerged and evolved to become governing parties.

The YSP evolved through several stages of struggle to liberate, unify and transform the Yemeni society. Its inauguration in 1978 by Abdul Fattah Ismail, its first leader, came as a result of the progressive unification process of a number of Yemeni revolutionary groups in both South and North Yemen, including the Unified Political National Front Organization, itself the result of merging three parties, namely the National Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (NLF), Democratic Popular Union Party (Marxist), and Popular Vanguard Party of South Yemen (left Ba'ath Party); and the Yemeni Popular Unity Party in North Yemen, itself the result of merging of 5 leftist organizations, namely: Revolutionary Democratic Party of Yemen, Popular Vanguard Party in North Yemen, Organisation of Yemeni Revolutionary Resistors, Popular Democratic Union and Labour Party.

Surviving many upheavals and civil strife in Yemen, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the crisis of international socialism, the YSP was instrumental in achieving Yemeni unity and the establishment of multi-party democracy in the Republic of Yemen in May 1990.

Subsequent to the 1994 civil war the party's infrastructure and resources were confiscated by the GPC government and its cadres and members are regularly subjected to unwarranted arrests and torture. As a result, at the last legislative elections on 27 April 2003, the party only won 3.8% of the popular vote and eight out of 301 seats in the House of Deputies, the Parliament.

Current situation

The main strands constituting the composite ideology of the YSP are pan-Arab nationalism, Marxism, and social democratic trends. Since its inception the YSP has evolved through 7 distinct stages. Currently, the YSP along with other parties in the opposition coalition, including Islah Party (Muslim Brotherhood/tribal/Salafist) are waging a peaceful struggle for free and fair elections, peaceful transfer of power, and reformation of the Yemeni political system .

See also

• Joint Meeting Parties