almotamar.net - Assistant Secretary-General of the General People's Congress (GPC) Sheikh Sultan al-Barakani on Wednesday confirmed that dialogue is going on with parties of the Opposition Council and the Sons of Yemen League Party s well as the intellectuals, scholars and partisans and specialists in different issues that are included in the draft constitutional amendments. He added those amendments are for developing the political system and shifting to the local rule presented by President Ali Abdullah Saleh as translation to the presidential election platform according to which he has won the confidence of the people.

Al-Barakani said the dialogue with the opposition Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) represented in the parliament was not necessarily to stop and the essence was that the dialogue is the one going on between partners of the political action and various parties and sides, whether they were political or social because the principle of dialogue is the main thing. He said the issue of the supreme commission for elections was not a fatal blow dealing in those dialogues. Al-Barakani said the reason was that the GPC has let the legislative power to take the decision in line with its specialties in commitment to agreement of principles the GPC had signed with the JMP that there and then aroused that it had achieved a historical victory and called it as not an agreement between parties but rather an agreement sponsored by international organisations, and that included the formation of he supreme commission from judges.

The GPC Assistant Secretary General said the JMP has aroused a media fuss to create a hostile culture. It mentions things that it does not realize its consequences and its danger are not confined to the GPC or to the government alone but rather to the homeland as a whole.

Al-Barakani divulged that all that the JMP submitted at the dialogue has nothing to do with the people and their conditions and they did not bring forward any economic issue or issues related to demands concerning the living. Their main concern was rather the supreme commission for elections.

He said "They propagate for this subject in their media and statements but they did not absolutely submit those things with us. We were in Aden keen to put forward the issues related to the events of January 1986, the political conflicts and economic issues and we have submitted those issues. We are who prepared the document of the dialogue and always emphasize we are at a time and circumstances necessitating that we all agree."

Al-Barakani added that minutes of dialogue are registered and "We do not tell lies to the people and trade with their issues. They (JMP) they were submitting issues of the people and that is very clear meant for local exploitation."

Sheikh al-Barakani said the draft of constitutional amendments will be submitted to the parliament after Al-Adha Eid because of shortage of time at present and then the opportunity will be open for dialogue and discussion by those concerned and specialists and there will be symposiums and workshops to benefit from whatever positive even if it would come from the JMP. "We at the GPC put the initiative into force because we feel that the issues of the people are our concern as authority and government and as a party because the citizens have granted us their confidence." He added there are committees set up for drafting the constitutional amendments draft completely and finally as " we cannot tell the people this is the president's initiative without giving a constitutional and legal formula about the initiative so that the researcher and the interested and our partners in the political process in addition to the civil society organisations can discuss the subject seriously." Al-Barakani considered the local rule as a pivotal issue in the constitutional amendments and decisive in overcoming many of problems and that would enhance the people's participation, the national unity, the position of Yemen, building of the state, development and services as well as the monitoring over performance of the local authority apparatuses and presence of the state everywhere.

He said "With existence of the local rule we will be safe and assured that we are running the internal affair as local councils and let the government get devoted to the biggest affair; panning for the strategic work instead of interfering in issues of stationery and pencils, ink and chalk. In fact we have got bored of much talking and I think this is the issue to which our convictions and dialogues must go and we have to benefit from the world experiments of the local rule. "

Al-Barakani expressed his thanks to members of the constitutional committee who were successful in benefiting from experiments of 15 countries while in the process of their preparation of the constitutional amendments draft. He said they are preparing to draw up the local rule draft through benefiting from experiments of European, American, African and Arab countries.

In his interview to Al-Mithaq newspaper al-Barakani made it clear that the issue of the local rule does not accept dilly-dallying and those who think the local rule as a coup against the unity or their authority have to realize that the issue of the people rights and large people's participation in the government is the biggest and the most important and that is a right guaranteed in the constitution.