Sheikh Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar, the founder and president of the Reform Party (Al-Islah), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, admitted that the party was established on Sept. 13, 1990, as part of a deal with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, with the aim of opposing the Yemeni Socialist Party (Saleh’s partner in Yemen’s unification).

This is because Saleh and his own party — the General People’s Congress — could not do so themselves for ethical reasons because they were the Socialist Party’s partners in the declaration of unification on May 22, 1990. But Sheikh Ahmar died at the end of 2007, and the party that he established was transformed to lead, in 2011, the youth revolution against its former ally Saleh, with Ahmar’s son, Humaid, becoming Saleh’s most prominent adversary.

It can be said that the Brotherhood’s alliance with Saleh’s regime came mainly as a result of the existence of the Yemeni Socialist Party, the main entity that could effectively compete against them both. The alliance began upon the party’s founding in Aden during the same year that Saleh ascended to power (1978). It lasted until Saleh and the Brotherhood ousted the Socialist Party from the political equation, in its capacity as partner in unification and the administration, following the war of 1994.

Ironically, the Socialist Party, or what remained of it, later allied itself with the Brotherhood against Saleh, as part of what is currently known as the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP). This was because Saleh, once his attack against the Socialist Party was completed, endeavored to strike against his historical ally (the Islah Party) in stages.