The Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) (الحزب الاشتراكي اليمني, al-Hizb al-Ishtiraki al-Yamani) is a political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

.

It was the ruling party in South Yemen, the only Marxist Arab state, before unification in 1990. Now it is an opposition party in the unified Yemen.

General secretaries

• Abdul Fattah Ismail
  Abdul Fattah Ismail
  Abd al-Fattah Ismail Ali Al-Jawfi was the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Council, head of state of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, and founder, chief ideologue, and first leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party from 21 December 1978 to 21 April 1980.Born in July 1939 in...
  
   (1978 – 1980)
• Ali Nasser Muhammad (1980 – 1986)
• Ali Salim al-Beidh (1986 – 1994)
• Ali Saleh Obad (Moqbel) (1994 – 2005)
• Dr. Yasin Said Numan
  Yasin Said Numan
  Yasin Said Numan was the Prime Minister of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen from February 1986 until the Yemeni unification in 1990, under Chairman Haidar Abu Bakr al-Attas, who preceded Numan as Prime Minister. Numan had previously been Minister of Fisheries and Deputy Prime...
  
   (2005 – present)

History

In Yemen, radical and progressive ideas appeared in the 1940s and 1950s with the first waves of Yemeni students abroad. Political organizations in this Muslim country emerged and evolved to become governing parties.

The YSP evolved through several stages of struggle to liberate, unify and transform the Yemeni society. Its inauguration in 1978 by Abdul Fattah Ismail

Abdul Fattah Ismail

Abd al-Fattah Ismail Ali Al-Jawfi was the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Council, head of state of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, and founder, chief ideologue, and first leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party from 21 December 1978 to 21 April 1980.Born in July 1939 in...

, its first leader, came as a result of the progressive unification process of a number of Yemeni revolutionary groups in both South and North Yemen, including the Unified Political National Front Organization, itself the result of merging three parties, namely the National Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (NLF), Democratic Popular Union Party (Marxist), and Popular Vanguard Party of South Yemen

People's Vanguard Party (South Yemen)

The People's Vanguard Party was a Ba'athist political party in South Yemen. It was aligned with the Syrian-based Ba'ath Party. Abdallah Badhib was the general secretary of the party. Badhib was appointed Minister of Education in December 1969. IThe party was one of two non-National Front parties...

 (left Ba'ath Party); and the Yemeni Popular Unity Party in North Yemen, itself the result of merging of 5 leftist organizations, namely: Revolutionary Democratic Party of Yemen

Revolutionary Democratic Party of Yemen

Revolutionary Democratic Party of Yemen was a political party in North Yemen, founded by a conference of the members of the Arab Nationalist Movement in North Yemen in June 1968. The conference resolved to break its organizational ties with the central structures of the ANM and form the...

, Popular Vanguard Party in North Yemen, Organisation of Yemeni Revolutionary Resistors

Organisation of Yemeni Revolutionary Resistors

The Organization of Yemeni Revolutionary Resistors was a rebel group in North Yemen. It was founded in 1970, with background in the republican forces that helped to defend San'a during the royalist siege 1967-1968...

, Popular Democratic Union and Labour Party.

Surviving many upheavals and civil strife in Yemen, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the crisis of international socialism, the YSP was instrumental in achieving Yemeni unity and the establishment of multi-party democracy in the Republic of Yemen in May 1990.

Subsequent to the 1994 civil war the party's infrastructure and resources were confiscated by the GPC government and its cadres and members are regularly subjected to unwarranted arrests and torture. As a result, at the last legislative elections

Elections in Yemen

Yemen elects on national level a head of state and a legislature. The president is elected for a seven year term by the people. The Assembly of Representatives of Yemen has 301 members, elected for a six year term in single-seat constituencies.Yemen is usually considered a dominant-party state...

 on 27 April 2003, the party only won 3.8% of the popular vote and eight out of 301 seats in the House of Deputies, the Parliament.

Current situation

The main strands constituting the composite ideology of the YSP are pan-Arab nationalism, Marxism, and social democratic trends. Since its inception the YSP has evolved through 7 distinct stages.
Currently, the YSP along with other parties in the opposition coalition, including Islah Party (Muslim Brotherhood

Muslim Brotherhood

The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...

/tribal

Abdullah ibn Husayn al-Ahmar

Sheikh Abdullah bin Husayn bin Nasser al-Ahmar was a politician and tribe leader of Yemen. He was speaker of the Assembly of Representatives of Yemen from 1993 to 2007 and also was the Sheikh of the Hashid tribal federation and the Al-Islah tribal confederacy.He inherited the position of Sheikh...

/Salafi

Salafi

A Salafi come from Sunni Islam is a follower of an Islamic movement, Salafiyyah, that is supposed to take the Salaf who lived during the patristic period of early Islam as model examples...

st) are waging a peaceful struggle for free and fair elections, peaceful transfer of power, and reformation of the Yemeni political system .