Yemen's election committee said Monday it has rejected, for religious reasons, the candidacy of a Yemeni Jew in the February 20 municipal elections, reported the Kuwaiti News Agency (KUNA).
"The committee rejected Ezer Ibrahim's application because he is a Jew, and municipal law stipulates that election candidates should be Muslims," a committee official was quoted by the agency as saying.
Ibrahim, a member of Yemen's Jewish community, had registered to run on the list of the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) in Raydah, 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital, AFP said.
Had his candidacy been upheld, he would have been the first Jew to run for political office in Yemen, the agency added.
The polls, the first municipal elections since Yemen's unification in 1990, will take place the same day as a referendum on constitutional reforms that opposition parties charge are aimed at turning Yemen into a one-party state under the GPC.
There are nearly 50,000 Jews residing in the northern area of Yemen after many had migrated to Israel via the United States and European countries -- Albawaba.com
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