SANAA, April 27: Yemenis crowded polling stations on Sunday to vote for their third parliament since the country’s unification in 1990, keen to display their democratic credentials after the US-led war on Iraq.

Polling stations closed at 1500 GMT but Khaled al-Sharif, the top election official, said results would not be announced for three days as ballot papers had to be brought from remote areas.

Despite calls by President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Muslim religious leaders to shun violence, witnesses said at least 11 Yemenis were wounded in shootouts between backers of rival candidates.

The impoverished Arab country, with a population of 20 million, is eager to prove to the United States that its public has a say in governance, particularly after the war that toppled Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

“Democracy is the saviour of the rulers and the people,” said Saleh, who ruled North Yemen for 12 years before taking the helm of the unified state in 1990.

Witnesses said the shootouts were mostly between backers of the ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) and those of the opposition Islah Party. One soldier was seriously wounded when troops tried to stop a clash.

The election violence was less than in previous polls in a country where many people carry arms. Twenty-nine people were killed in fighting in municipal elections in 2001.

Yemen is home to many Muslim militants and sympathisers of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, Washington’s main suspect in the September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities.

About 8.9 million people were registered to vote, 40 percent of them women, a relatively high figure compared with Yemen’s Arab neighbours.—Reuters