JMP'S "NATIONAL SALVATION PLAN" JUST ANOTHER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SANAA 001687 SIPDIS DEPT FOR NEA/ARP AMACDONALD AND INR SMOFFATT E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/16/2019 TAGS: PGOV YM SUBJECT: JMP'S "NATIONAL SALVATION PLAN" JUST ANOTHER DETOUR ON THE ROAD TO THE 2011 ELECTIONS REF: SANAA 1558 Classified By: Ambassador Stephen Seche for reasons 1.4(b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. After months of anticipation, the opposition Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) released its National Salvation Plan which, while billed as a comprehensive solution to the nation's major crises ) Sa'ada and the Southern Movement - falls short of the level of detail or political buy-in necessary to address effectively Yemen's political problems. The ruling General People's Congress (GPC) greeted the plan with derision, announcing a less-than-serious counter-proposal of its own which lacked substance and has yet to even be published. With the official GPC-JMP dialogue still frozen and any meaningful contact proving difficult, the road to the 2011 parliamentary elections appears long and filled with potholes. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) In a press conference on September 7, the opposition Joint Meeting Parties' (JMP) National Dialogue Committee presented its long-awaited National Salvation Plan for bringing the country out of its multiple crises. Committee Chair and former presidential advisor Mohammed Salim Basenduah and Committee Secretary General and Islah MP Hamid al-Ahmar introduced the plan in an emotional event dominated by the politically ambitious Ahmar. The JMP said that the plan, produced after months of consultations across Yemen with various constituencies, proposed a series of solutions aimed at achieving "a national consensus for change that maintains the entity of the state and restores the substance of the May 22 unification," specifically an end to the war in Sa'ada and resolution of the southern issue. However, the plan lacked detail about how to implement solutions to these complex problems and did not provide the new thinking that many members of the Yemeni political classes had hoped for. A clearly emotional Basenduah closed his remarks at the press conference by urging Yemenis to "turn their country around, before it's too late." ¶3. (C) The General People's Congress (GPC) leadership held a press conference on September 10 that was billed as a response to the JMP's National Salvation Plan. GPC General Committee member Mohammed Abulahoum told PolOff on September 15 that the committee did not even consider seriously responding to the plan. "We destroyed it! We called it an outrage, and called them all (the JMP) traitors," he said. (Note: Abulahoum himself is considered a reformer and moderate among the GPC leadership, and used a mocking tone of "we" to describe the committee's deliberations. End Note.) Sultan al-Barakhani, head of the GPC bloc in Parliament, led the event, in which the GPC announced the launch of its Modernization and Reform Initiative, which appeared to be little more than a public relations stunt aimed at attacking the JMP. (Note: The details of the plan, which has not yet been published, were not even discussed during the press conference. End Note.) "The only thing Yemen needs salvation from is the people who call for its salvation," Barakhani said. Political observers in Sana'a agreed that the event focused on criticizing the JMP, rather than presenting a serious plan for reforming the nation. President Saleh also used an interview on al-Jazeera on September 11 to lambast the JMP for its "distracting tactics." ¶4. (C) Abulahoum, who gave up his membership on the Dialogue Committee earlier this year after concluding that its efforts were futile, said that the formal GPC-JMP dialogue, completely frozen since July (reftel),would not resume "any time soon." JMP Chairman and al-Haq Party Secretary General Hassan Zayd agreed. He told PolOff on August 26, "There is no dialogue. And there will not be." The JMP says it will not negotiate with the GPC until there is a "normalization" of the political situation in Yemen ) to include ending the sixth war in Sa'ada and resolving the crisis in the southern governorates. Journalists and politicians on both sides agree that the war in Sa'ada has derailed any political-reform discussions, and will be a significant setback in preparing for the April 2011 parliamentary elections. Abulahoum expressed apprehension that even if dialogue were to resume, the major political parties will be unable to address the issues of significance to the Yemeni people. "The GPC, the JMP ) neither of us represent the people anymore. We don't know what's happening in the streets of Aden or Abyan," Abulahoum said. COMMENT -------------- ¶5. (C) Over the last four months, the JMP has concentrated the bulk of its efforts on conducting a national dialogue which its leaders said would present a comprehensive reform package that would push the ruling party to implement at least some much-needed reforms. Post has long urged the JMP to come up with a platform or national strategy that would challenge the ruling party to present alternative policies of its own. While the National Salvation Plan represents the JMP's first real effort at drafting national party policies, it does not contain new or different proposals for solving Yemen's myriad problems. Further, the GPC's intransigence and refusal to take the JMP's plan seriously suggests that the absence of dialogue during the Ramadan break has not brought the two sides any closer together. END COMMENT. SECHE