Southern Movement followers expelled on Saturday some committees tasked with organizing and running the upcoming early presidential elections from polling centers in some of the Yemeni southern provinces.Local sources told Yemen Post that some Separation supporters have forced committees out of some schools that are used as polling centers in Al-Mansoura district of the southern port city of Aden.
The gunnies threatened the committees of killing if they insist on resuming their duties and get back to their polls, the local sources said.
The Movement said the south must not take part in the upcoming presidential elections, considering it a domestic affair of the north Yemen.
Southern Movement, otherwise known as Separation Movement, calls for an independent south Yemen state.
There are major divisions among the SM's leaders; while some call for federal governance like the former south Yemen's leader, Ali Nasser Mohamed, others insist on complete separation of the north, including former south Yemen's president Ali Sallem al-Biyath, who has signed the unity accord with Yemeni outgoing President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
in 1990.
Some southerners complain that they have been marginalized by the government since the reunifications in 1990. Joint Meeting Parties, the main opposition bloc in the country, has suggested appointing a president form the south as apart of an effort to preserve unity.
Even though Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, the sole candidate for the upcoming presidential elections set to be held on February 21 in line with the GCC-brokered deal signed in Soddy Arabia, is from the south, SM announced its rejection of the elections, and called for boycotting it.