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The Rise and Fall of Cross-Ideological Political Cooperation in Yemen

Civil Society
Social Movements
Party Systems
Vincent Durac
University College Dublin
Vincent Durac
University College Dublin

Abstract

In 2002, Yemen witnessed the emergence of a cross-ideological coalition of opposition parties - the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) - that echoed similar developments elsewhere in the Middle East. The JMP was a five party coalition that brought together the Islamist Islah party, the leftist Yemeni Socialist Party (YSPP and a number of smaller political parties. Its formation was startling not least because just eight years earlier, elements of Islah were centrally involved in a short-lived civil war in which the YSP and its supporters suffered both political defeat and, in some instances, loss of life. After 2002, the JMP offered persistent, if ultimately insubstantial opposition to the ruling regime. Following the outbreak of country-wide anti-regime protests in 2011, the JMP threw its support behind the protesters. The anti-Saleh social movement that developed succeeded in toppling the regime. In its aftermath the JMP assumed a central place in the post-Saleh transitional phase. In the process, however, the social movement was fractured and many elements of the 2011 anti-regime coalition were marginalised with what proved to be disastrous consequences for the country, as widespread alienation ultimately led to civil war and international aggression led by the Gulf Cooperation Council and Saudi Arabia in particular. This Paper will explore the development of cross-ideological cooperation in Yemen from the early 2000s to the post-Saleh era. It will outline the emergence of the Joint Meeting Parties, its rationale, ideological underpinnings and its relation to the ruling regime. Next, it will examine the role of the JMP in the broader anti-regime social movement that emerged in the Spring of 2011. The paper will then analyse the trajectory of events since 2011 with a view to understanding the factors that drove the fracturing of the anti-Saleh coalition. Finally, the paper will offer some broader reflections on the insights that can be gleaned from the case of Yemen for the application of social movement theory to the post-2011 Middle East.