Yemen Elections, the U.N. and Mainstream Arab Leaders

Middle East Commentary

Yemen Election:
In a shocking upset for an Arab leader, Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh has won an 82% landslide victory in the presidential election. Mr. Saleh has been in office for 28 years. Arab media had been predciting the results for some time- in itself an amazing feat of journalistic prescience unseen these days anywhere outside the Arab World. Except for North Korea.

Mr. Saleh had initially declined to run for office because, it was said, he wanted some free time to take his wife out to dinner and perhaps an ice cream cone afterwards. The public was stunned into justifiably incredulous silence. He finally yielded to irresistibly strong pressure from the same formerly incredulous Yemeni public, who apparently did not know how they would manage without Mr. Ali being at the helm for at least two more decades, or three. It is not known if he has any male children to inherit the persidency, like Assad of Syria or Mubarak of Egypt- which might explain the sudden urge to take his wife out to dinner, and an ice cream cone afterwards.

Leadership Styles:
Yesterday I saw two leaders address the world and their own peoples from the UN. Both seemed so confident in the righteousness of their cause, and in their superior faith, of course. Both have been polarizing figures, with strident enemies and strong supporters in their own respective regions. I discovered with some shock that Bush and Ahmadinejad have much more in common than I had realized. This can be good or it can be bad, depending on one's outlook.

Yet the two were not addressing each other, they talked around each other, rather like debating candidates in an American election campaign. But then this is what U.N speeches are about, putting positions on the record, and trying to sway audiences worldwide. Except that in most cases there are no worldwide audiences. ( The ranting speech by Venezuela's Chavez defies comment).

For example, the only audiences to speeches delivered by Arab leaders at the UN are captive viewers bound to state-owned television stations- plus underlings and minions who are later queried about the delivery and content of the speeches, just to make sure that they actually watched and listened. Even the doemstic captive audience is not guaranteed anymore in this age of satellite TV and the internet. I certainly have not watched one in many years, whether it was delivered at the UN or anywhere else, and I used to be a domestic captive viewer. It is no fun listening to a speech with nothing new in it, and Arab leaders almost never say anything new in their public speeches. These guys are too stiff to venture into new territory. I suspect some of them might say interesting things in their private conversations, although sometimes I am doubtful about that too. Perhaps the pillow talk, such as it is, is interesting. Maybe.

The last interesting public speech of an Arab leader was probably delivered by the late Anwar Sadat- a speech in which he did something Arab leaders almost never ever do: he said something new and unexpected, and then he went ahead and did it. He must have, because he gained the enmity of most Arab leaders and many of their peoples. In return, Sadat contemptuously called them 'dwarves and midgets', and he probably wasn't far off the mark, because in the end they came back to him.

Colonel Qadhafi of Libya was also known for delivering speeches with interesting offbeat content, but that was years ago when he was also engaged in financing some unusual activities in the air as well as on land. He is now older, wiser, and boring, as befits a grown up Arab leader. He is almost mainstream Arab now, he even dyes his hair jet black, a sure sign of Arab mainstream tendencies. Still, he needs a jet black mustache (dyed of course) to be eligible for full membership. Occasionally the Colonel slips something into his public statements that reminds one of his old wild days, when he seemed to enjoy stepping on brittle Arab toes and sensitive tails tucked between legs.
Cheers
Mohammed
(Note: the above was mostly borrowed from my other website)