Likaa Mushtarak

Lika Mushtarak was formed in 2002. Initially, Islam , the Yemeni Socialist Party , the People’s Nazi Unionist Organization , the Union of People’s Forces , Al-Haqq and the Yemeni Ba'athists who later left the bloc were united in the bloc ^[2] . From the very beginning, the heterogeneity of the united parties was noted. For example, the Islamist party Islam , formed shortly after the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990, during the 1994 civil war, was an opponent of the socialists , the former ruling party of South Yemen . The Union of Popular Forces and Al-Haqq are a liberal and conservative Zeidite movement, while the Nazis , like the Socialists, are on a secular socialist platform. Despite this kind of ideological discrepancy, the desire to unite in order to more successfully oppose the VNK party that dominated the Yemeni political arena, led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen , turned out to be a pretty solid foundation for the existence of the bloc ^[3] . During the 2003 parliamentary elections, the bloc parties spoke separately, but in close cooperation. Thus, by mutual agreement, Islam recalled his candidates in 30 districts, where the socialists had great chances for success, who, in turn, recalled their candidates in 130 districts, where Islam enjoyed greater support ^[4] . As a result, Likaa Mushtarak received a total of 56 seats (46 from Islam , 7 from the Socialists and 3 from the Nasserists) ^[5] . In November 2005, leaders of the bloc parties at a joint press conference announced the publication of the “Program of Political and National Reforms”, the main points of which were replacing the authoritarian regime of A. Saleh with a real parliamentary democratic pluralist system, establishing a real separation of powers, decentralizing the judiciary and administrative systems ^[4] . In the presidential election in the summer of 2006, Faisal bin Shamlan, a candidate from Lika Mushtarak, won about 20% of the vote ^[6] . According to the report of the EU observer mission, these presidential elections were held with a number of significant violations, the most serious of which were the widespread use of administrative resources and the opacity of the vote count ^[7] . Despite the rather successful results of the presidential election at the local elections held on the same day, the bloc was not able to show similar results ^[8] . After the 2006 election, tensions between Lika Mushtarak and KNK began to increase. Thanks to the mediation of Western countries, Lika Mushtarak and VNK began a joint discussion of the necessary reforms, in particular, in the field of electoral legislation, but these negotiations have reached an impasse. Lika Mushtarak first announced a boycott of the preparatory company for the 2009 parliamentary elections, and then called on her supporters to boycott the elections themselves. As a result, Likaa Mushtarak and VNK signed an agreement to postpone the elections for 2011, with the aim of implementing the necessary reforms until that time. In 2010, the parties also signed an agreement on holding a large-scale national dialogue during which all the political forces of the country could discuss the most important problems of Yemeni society ^[9] . Despite the possession of substantial resources (the strong position of the socialists in the south of the country, the presence of Islam with about 900 thousand registered supporters), Likaa Mushtarak, in the period from 2002 to 2011, was, in fact, removed from the real influence on decision-making. This was mainly explained by the opposition on the part of Ali Abdullah Saleh and his associates, who were in power at that time, by significant disagreements not only between the parties included in the bloc, but also within these parties themselves (for example, during the election campaign of 2006 one of the leaders of Islam, Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar, supported not the candidate from the party F. bin Shamlan, but the current president A. Saleh ), and the fact that, despite the formally pluralistic political space of Yemen, the country's political parties and parliament did not have influence on the process of political decision-making ^[10] .

During the first protests in January 2011, which featured a small number of participants, Lika Mushtarak did not join the protesters. Only after the intensification of protest activity associated with the fall in February 2011 of the Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt , did the bloc join the demands of the protesters, including and the demand for the resignation of President Saleh . However, unlike the street, which required the immediate departure of Salekh , Lika Mushtarak first put forward a number of proposals to the incumbent president to gradually leave the government ^[11] . Nevertheless, already in April 2011, the opposition, led by the bloc, issued an ultimatum to Saleh demanding his departure within two weeks ^[12] . Despite its initially weak ties with the wide protest movement that began in Yemen at the beginning of 2011 ^[11] , as the main organized opposition force, Lika Mushtarak became one of the main actors in the process of international settlement of the Yemen crisis.

November 23, 2011 Saleh signed the implementation mechanism of the GCC initiative. According to this document, presidential powers were transferred to Saleh , a fellow party member, Yemen's vice president, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi , and the new government was formed on the basis of a coalition of the VNK and Lika Mushtarak with equal representation of both parties. Likaa Mushtarak won 125 out of 565 seats at the General Dialogue conference launched in March 2013, which is 13 more than VNK .

• Gusterin P. Yemen in transition. On the way to peace or decay? - Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. - 2014. - ISBN 978-3-659-28300-0 .

• Yemen General People's Congress
• Islam