YEMEN: VIOLENCE PRECEDES PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

Sanaa, 5 Sept. (AKI) - Violent incidents continue in Yemen in the run up to the 20 September presidential elections. According to the Emirates daily al-Bayane, the president of the electoral commission of Asliya, in the province of al-Khab, was killed by a group of armed men. The ruling General Peoples' Congress (GPC) party also condemned the recent murder of one of its workers Mohamed Ali Jarman, who was allegedly killed by opposition members and supporters of the main opposition Islamic party al-Islah.

Jarman was killed in the district of al-Ghul as he was on his way home after attending an election meeting with the Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. This is the third murder in this current electoral campaign in Yemen.

In other violence, three people were killed and 20 others injured in clashes last month between different supporters of the various presidential candidates in Yemen's Al-Jawf Governorate, north-east of Sanaa.

Yemen's presidential elections will be held on 20 September and there are five candidates vying for the job. This is the first time that Saleh, who has been in power for 27 years, is facing serious opposition. The leading opposition candidate is Bin Shamlan who was nominated by al-Leka al-Mushtarak, a coalition of the major opposition parties: the Islamic Islah party, the Socialist party, the Nasserist Unionist party, the Al-Haq party, and the Popular Forces Union party.

Backed by the main pillars of power in Yemen - tribes and the army- Saleh won the first-ever direct presidential elections in 1999 with more than 96 percent of the vote. The al-Islah party was barred from fielding a presidential candidate, and described the poll as a sham.

Saleh came to power in 1978 in a military coup as leader of the Yemen Arab Republic - the northern part of present-day Yemen. When this merged in 1990 with Marxist South Yemen, he led the newly formed Republic of Yemen.