Since its founding as a major political party that transcended the circumstances of its founding 32 years ago, specifically on September 13, 1990, the Yemeni Islah Party's political stances were governed by the principles of the republic, unity, democracy, sovereignty, preserving the supreme interests of the homeland and consolidating the state as the shield that protects all of these national principles and constants.

From the first moments of announcing the formation of the Islah Party and the subsequent events and political stances in the country, passing the youth revolution of 2011, reaching the Houthi militia’s coup against the state and its control of the capital, Sana’a, in September 2014, the position of the Islah Party remained unchanged regarding those principles and constants that determined its vision in every position it took or decision it adopted.

This clear path taken by the Islah Party contributed to it being one of the most important effective political gains in the country, by virtue of its ability to adopt effective plans for a strategic transition from one situation to another, the most important of which is the Party’s transition from power to the opposition, as required by the supreme national interest, and thus it will be the Islah Party has given the political equation in the country its importance, diversity, and effectiveness.

It is worth noting here the effective roles that the Islah Party took in its siding with the state and its support for legitimacy since the first moment of signing the Gulf Initiative in November 2011, and the election of former President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi as President of the Republic of Yemen on February 21, 2012, and what preceded it, in addition to the positions it took in giving priority to the national interest and the sacrifices it has made since its founding in order to support the state and its legitimate authority.

Where, during the past stages, the positions of the Islah Party remained biased towards the state and its legitimacy, which derives its authority from the people, as the ruling and regulating criterion for its general course. Before talking about the most prominent of these positions and roles, we will try to shed light on the concept of the state from the point of view of the Islah Party and the political efforts made by the Party to protect, consolidate and restore the state from the grip of the Iranian militias.

Islah Party and the concept of the state:

The concept of the state for the Islah Party stems from a keenness to differentiate between the concepts of power and the state and not to combine them in order to avoid marginalizing society and removing it from the equation of governance, given that the combination emanating from the ruling elite or the opposition has worked to remove society from governance and transform the state into a tool for settling political scores between power and opposition.

Perhaps the Islah Party's keenness to differentiate between the concepts of power and the state comes in the context of its emphasis on society's participation in preserving its rights and preventing the authority from transforming the state and its apparatus into a flexible tool in its hand, then the citizen is left with no power that preserves and guarantees his rights and guards them against attacks. As well as preventing another combination regarding this concept by the opposition when it uses the right of political objection in a wrong way, where the opposition will not only stop at the point of opposing the authority and governments but rather will target the authority of the state itself.

In this context, it is important to stress that the differentiation between the concepts of power and state, which the Islah Party adopted, gave it the ability to deal with power differently, and this also facilitated the task of the Party's transition to the opposition in a smooth manner that made it avoid falling into the mistakes of other forces that merged these two concepts and made them one thing, by returning to the arena of competition for power again, within what is decided by the constitution and laws, and working as a party opposing the authority and not opposing the state.

Therefore, the Islah Party asserts that the Yemeni state will not be able to achieve its existence and stability except when the ruler stops using the sovereign state institutions in his favor and the opposition stops going towards fragmenting society as a reaction to the damage inflicted on it by the authority. In this context, the Islah Party also affirms that the miserable reality that Yemen is suffering from today is the result of the failure of the Yemeni components and elites to establish these two principles.

In confirmation of this, the Islah Party had managed to make a strategic transition from partisan legitimacy to political legitimacy when it left its participation in power in 1997 and moved to the opposition. The aim of this transition was not to fight the state or take revenge on it, but rather for broad political action within the framework of the JMP bloc in order to give the political equation its importance and diversity, as well as in order to restore value to the political opposition and its centrality as an active pillar in the Yemeni pluralized political system - power and opposition - after it was about to lose one of its pillars after the 1994 war, according to Yemeni political analyst Abdu Salem.

The Islah Party’s vision of the state’s form:

In the discussion paper that it presented to the Comprehensive National Dialogue Conference, the Islah Party presented its vision regarding the form of the state, stressing that the foundations and determinants stem from achieving decentralization in a manner that suits Yemen and the Yemeni people and that it be a civil state with a republican system in which the goals of the Yemeni revolutions September 26, October 14 And the peaceful February 11th are achieved, in a way that preserves the unity, sovereignty, security and stability of Yemen.

The Islah Party stresses the need for the form of the state to include the principle of election as a basis for the formation and composition of the leaders of the decentralized governance, taking into account the clear determination of the central and decentralized validities and powers, in a way that gives the bodies and leaders of the decentralized governance the ability to manage their affairs, in a way that achieves consultative democracy for the people because it is the owner and source of power.

The vision of the Islah Party also included that the state should work to "achieve the principles of equal citizenship and national partnership in power and wealth, and to preserve the dignity of the Yemenis, given that the state is a purpose and a means to achieve the aspirations of its citizens and works to achieve a comprehensive renaissance for its people and guarantees them equal job opportunities and decent living.”

The Islah Party stresses the need for the natural wealth and public resources in the state to be owned by the Yemeni people with ensuring that the decentralized units receive a fair percentage of the revenues of the wealth extracted from it and that all local units participate in an equal development that is funded from the state's general wealth and resources.

It also stresses the necessity of "accurately defining sovereign and decentralized resources and wealth, and for the judiciary to be the decisive tool in resolving any dispute that may arise between the central and decentralized authorities, as determined by law."

Islah Party and its efforts to support the state:

And based on what was mentioned above, the Islah Party is always keen to support the state, according to the concept that was clarified above, and the form of the state that it presented in its vision to the state-building team during the Comprehensive National Dialogue Conference that concluded its work in January 2014, as it owes the state in the Party's existence and origin, where its establishment has been announced only four months after the establishment of the Unity State on May 22, 1990.

Where, the Unity State, which coincided with the founding of the Islah Party, contributed to the creation of the electoral mechanism that transformed the Islah Party into an influential figure in the Yemeni political equation and liberated it from a number of the political taboos followed before, where prior to unity, political parties were prohibited in the north and south of the country, and therefore the Unity State has worked on the strategic transition of the Islah Party and the rest of the Yemeni parties from prohibited secret work to the legitimacy of declared partisan work, after the country's transition from a one-party system to a system of partisan and political pluralism.

In addition, the effective presence of the Islah Party through the elections that the country witnessed came as a result of the declaration of the state, which gave it freedom of movement and popular expansion until it became one of the forces closest to and expressive of the masses. This reality provided by the Unity State and its pluralistic system deserve, from the point of view of the Islah Party, the opposition to all trends that detract from it or threaten its entity gatherer.

Therefore, the most prominent manifestation of the Islah Party’s support for the state was during the Arab Spring Revolutions, when the Islah Party stood in the trench of the people’s demands, side by side with the demands of the youth, as well as preserve the concept of the state, preserve sovereignty, the republic, and regional relations, in light of an interlocked struggle ring that eventually led to a historic settlement embodied in the Gulf Initiative to preserve the state from collapse and rid it of an Iranian robbery, which its indications have become clear, and it is the settlement that was overturned by Iranian tools through the terrorist Houthi militia.

Islah party and enhancing the presence of the state:

In addition to the aforementioned, through conducting a simple review of the positions and literature of the Yemeni Islah Party and its role in consolidating legitimacy since the first day of the signing of the Gulf Initiative document in November 2011, and the election of former President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi as President of the Republic of Yemen, any observer can note the extent of the stability of the vision and the monism of positions the Islah Party took to support state institutions, as well as to ensure their consolidation and not divert them from the national battle, despite the malicious arrows that hit it from all sides, but those arrows did not make it deviate from supporting legitimacy and its various institutions, where its positions continued to revolve around supporting the state.

These are the same positions that the Islah Party has consistently adopted since its establishment through its prominent roles in the field of political and partisan work, and also its bright stations that contributed to the crystallization of political action in Yemen, starting with participation in power and then leaving it and establishing the Joint Meeting Parties bloc, passing through the 2011 popular revolution, and ending To the coup of the Houthi militia against the state and the republican system, where the Islah party was and still plays active roles in supporting the legitimate state in the face of the Iranian-backed Houthi coup to this day.

Thus, the Islah Party's positions regarding enhancing the presence of the state remained constant, especially when the state is in its worst stages of weakness, due to its belief in the importance of the state's role in bringing together the diaspora of Yemeni society and preserving national unity and the social fabric of the people of the same country, not to mention its role in the security of neighboring countries. Therefore, the Islah Party made great sacrifices after the state was exposed to the danger of the Houthi militia backed by Iran, and devoted all its efforts to supporting the legitimate authority in its war against the coup, with the support of the Arab Alliance countries.

The positions of the Islah Party in support of the state and legitimacy come as a translation of the political literature of the party, which confirms that its positions with regard to foreign issues and relations with other countries should not be contrary to the foreign policy of the state, to reflect the extent to which the party strengthens the role of the state, supporting it in all circumstances, upholding the status of the state and strengthening Its active presence in order to be the reference and protective umbrella for all national political forces in the country.

The Islah Party and its role in restoring the state:

No one denies that the Islah Party represented the most prominent active political force in Yemen in support of the legitimate government and former President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, as the Party remained coherent in its organizational entity and political position regarding the coup that the legitimate authority was subjected to by the Houthi militia in 2014, in addition to being the only party that has not witnessed a division regarding its clear position on the Houthi coup, unlike some other forces that have been moving between legitimacy and the coup.

This clear and declared position in support of the legitimate authority appeared through the declared support of the Islah Party for the intervention of the Arab Coalition in Support of Legitimacy led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since March 26, 2015. The Islah Party has paid a heavy price for this clear and declared national position regarding its rejection of the coup and standing with the legitimacy and the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia Where the Houthi militia kidnapped more than 122 leaders and members of the Islah Party and its activists in the capital, Sana'a, within one day, hours after the party announced its support for Operation Decisive Storm. Also, 17 homes of leaders and activists of the Islah Party were stormed, and 9 of the party's headquarters were subjected to widespread looting, according to human rights reports.

The Houthi militia also announced the dissolution of the Islah Party, after which it was exposed to abuse that affected the Party's leaders, members, headquarters, and infrastructure. These acts included killing, abducting, disappearance, and storming of homes and institutions in Sana'a and the various areas under the control of the Houthi coup militia. In addition to the continued abduction of hundreds of its supporters and members, and the militia issuing death sentences against some of the Party's leaders and members, where some of them died in the prisons of the Houthi militia as a result of the torture they were subjected to in its prisons as a result of the Party's stance supporting the state and its legitimacy.

And with the formation of the movement of societal rejection and resistance in various Yemeni regions and Governorates, after the state of weakness and fragmentation that the state and political parties suffered from after the coup of the Houthi militia, the position of the Islah Party appeared powerfully in support of the popular resistance that was formed in many regions. The Islah Party, with its leadership and bases, had an effective contribution to urging Yemeni society to take to the battlefield to confront the coup of the Houthi militia. Where the Islah Party had an active role in confronting the Houthi militia, justifying that the Houthi militia's poured out of its anger on members of the Islah Party in its areas of control, where they were subjected to many types of abuse, to the point of detaining Islah leaders and activists in weapons depots to be subject to be targeted by the Alliance aircraft. The Islah Party lost many of its leaders in the war against the Houthi militia, whether in prisons and detention centers, on the battlefields, or in the bombing launched by the Houthis that targeted institutions, buildings, and homes located in the middle of residential neighborhoods in several cities and villages.

Thus, it becomes clear the extent of the sacrifices made by the Yemeni Islah Party in restoring the state and ending the coup, side by side with the legitimate authority and the rest of the political partners, and with the support of the Arab Alliance countries led by Saudi Arabia. The Islah Party emerged as the largest Yemeni party supporting the legitimate authority and the largest political organization that protects national unity as it transcends tribal, regional, and sectarian divisions and other cracks that tore Yemeni society as a result of the destruction caused by the coup against the state and the legitimate authority by the terrorist Houthi militia.