Yemen national dialogue participants

Sana’a: Yemen’s national dialogue, which opens on Monday in Sana’a and runs for six months, brings together 565 representatives of various political groups of which the most important are:

The General People’s Congress (GPC), chaired by ousted strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, remains the largest political party and holds a majority in parliament. President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi is deputy leader of the party which has 112 seats at the conference.

The Southern Movement, a coalition of southern separatists and federalists, has 85 seats. A radical faction, led by the exiled former president of South Yemen, Ali Salem Al Baid, and which demands full independence for the south, is boycotting the talks.

The Islamist Al Islah (reform) Party is Yemen’s second largest in parliament. At the dialogue, it holds 50 seats.

Independent youth groups — the main engines behind the 2011 uprising that ousted Saleh — will have 40 representatives. Women’s organisations and civil society groups hold the same number of seats.

The Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which ruled the formerly independent South Yemen and which has seven MPs, has 37 seats.

The Zaidi Shiite rebels led by Abdul Malek Al Houthi, who have mounted repeated uprisings in the far north of the country since 2004, has 35 seats.

The pan-Arab Unionist Popular Nasserite Organisation with three MPs will be represented by 30 seats at the conference.

Five other smaller parties, including the Arab nationalist Al Baath, hold 20 seats at the conference.

Two newly formed parties, the hardline Islamist Al Rashad party and the liberal Justice and Construction (JCP), will have seven seats each.

Hadi will assign the remaining 62 seats to tribal dignitaries, religious leaders and representatives of religious minorities including Jews.