Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi ( ar, قحطان محمد الشعبي; 1920 – 7 July 1981) was the first

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

of the

People's Republic of South Yemen South Yemen ( ar, اليمن الجنوبي, al-Yaman al-Janubiyy), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (, ), also referred to as Democratic Yemen (, ) or Yemen (Aden) (, ), was a communist state that existed from 1967 to 19 ...

. Al-Shaabi's National Liberation Front (NLF) political organisation wrested control of the country from the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

and won political supremacy over the opposition

Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen The Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY; ) was an Arab nationalist military organization operating in the Federation of South Arabia (a British protectorate; now Southern Yemen) in the 1960s. As the British tried to exit, Ab ...

(FLOSY) in 1967. On 30 November 1967, the

Protectorate of South Arabia The Protectorate of South Arabia consisted of various states located at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula under treaties of protection with Britain. The area of the former protectorate became part of South Yemen after the Radfan uprisi ...

was declared independent as the People's Republic of South Yemen, with al-Shaabi as President. Al-Shaabi held the presidency until 22 June 1969, when a hard-line

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

group from within his own NLF seized control. He was replaced by

Salim Rubai Ali Salim Rubai Ali (; 17 June 1934 – 26 June 1978), known by his comrades as "Salimin", was the Marxist head of state of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) from 22 June 1969 until his execution on 26 June 1978. Rubai Ali led ...

and jailed, then placed under house arrest until the 1970s, and lived quietly in Aden from his release until his death in 1981. Al-Shaabi was originally an agricultural officer from

Lahej Lahij or Lahej ( ar, لحج, Laḥj, links=no), also called al-Hawtah, is a city and an area located between Ta'izz and Aden in Yemen. From the 18th to the 20th century, its rulers were of the Abdali branch of the Al-Sallami tribe who trace th ...

who fled to

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

in 1958. In 1962, he was announced the head of a National Liberation Army, formed in Egypt, and in 1963 or 1965, he was chosen the founding head of the NLF. Upon independence in 1967, he was the best-known NLF leader and the only one over 40 years old. As part of the

Nasserist Nasserism ( ) is an Arab nationalist and Arab socialist political ideology based on the thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and Egypt's second President. Spanning the domestic a ...

nationalist right-wing faction of the NLF, he fought the Marxist left wing for a year and a half until his ouster in the 22 June

Corrective Move The Corrective Move ( ar, الحركة التصحيحية, al-ḥaraka at-taṣḥīḥiyya), officially referred to as the "Glorious Corrective Move" and often referred to as the "Corrective Step", was the takeover of the Yemeni National Libera ...

, also known as the Glorious Corrective Move, in 1969. The government declared in 1990 that the deposition was "in the absence of true democracy". Qahtan's son Najib Qahtan al-Shaabi ran unsuccessfully against President

Ali Abdullah Saleh Ali Abdullah Saleh al-Ahmar (, ''ʿAlī ʿAbdullāh Ṣāliḥ al-Aḥmar;'' 21 March 1947There is a dispute as to Saleh's date of birth, some saying that it was on 21 March 1942. See: However, by Saleh's own confession, he was born in 1947 al ...

in the 1999 Yemeni presidential election.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaabi, Qahtan Muhammad al- 1920 births 1981 deaths Nasserists Presidents of South Yemen Yemeni Arab nationalists Yemeni socialists People from Lahij Governorate South Yemen independence activists Leaders ousted by a coup