More than 9 million Yemeni voters are going on Wednesday to the polls to cast their votes to elect president and municipalities members in 5,620 constituencies distributed over 333 directorates. Five presidential candidates are contesting the race, the second of its kind in this Arab country.
The five candidates for the presidential position are: Ali Abdullah Saleh of the General People Congress GPC, Yaseen Abdu Sa'aeed of the National Council of Opposition NCO, Ahmed Abdulah Al-Majeedi, independent, Faisal Bin Shamlan of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) and Fathi Al-Azab, independent.
Observers claim Saleh is facing his first real challenge in 28 years as head of state. The main opposition figure bin Shamlan enjoys a reputation for integrity in public office.
On Tuesday, Saleh stated during a press conference in the presidential palace that the security authorities had arrested a "major terrorist," who was charged of planning to attack US interests in Yemen. The president presented an image, showing the suspect Hussein Ahmed standing behind bin Shamlan in one of his electoral rallies.
"When the securities authorities had arrested the man, they found with him an amount of dynamites," pointing out that his standing behind the JMP's candidate raised a lot of questions.
Bin Shamlan's followers dismissed the accusation.
Regarding the municipal elections, 1,612 candidates are contesting for 525 seats that make up the local councils in the governorates, while 8,901 candidates involved in the contest for 6,896 seats of the municipalities in the directorates.
Nine international organizations are taking part in the observation upon the elections from the EU, U.S. , Asia and Africa. The number of local monitors comes up to 45,000.
