43 • Helping in establishing an efficient network for inter-party communications. 3.3. The Yemeni Congregation for Reform(Islah) 3.3.1. General Context A. Party History In 1990, the unification agreement of the new Republic of Yemen (ROY) lifted the official legal ban on opposition parties. Following this action, several groups, including Islah’s leadership, split from the GPC and formed their own parties. Subsequently, the official foundation of the Islah Party took place in Sana’a on September 13, 1990, four months after the unification. Islah Party’s background starts from a religious movement known as Al-Ikhwan Muslimeen or the Muslim Brotherhood. Sheikh Yassin Ab­dulaziz, Sheikh Abdulmajied Al-Zandani, Abdulmalik Mansoor(at pre­sent in GPC) and others are considered the main founders of the spiri­tual core of Islah and Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1960s in Taiz. By the late 1960s, the Muslim Brotherhood started to organise itself socially and politically in response to the growing popularity of the Ba’ath and Socialist parties and movements(leftists). The Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood was distinct from the model found in other Arab and Muslim states, especially North Africa, as they ideologically and practically overcome any unexpected evolving extremism or violence, but rather an open and reform organisation. In their political campaigns, the Muslim Brotherhood concentrated on the traditional, tribal areas in the Yemeni highlands. The Brotherhood was careful to present itself to the world not as a pure Islamic institution, but as a reforming group and a modern political party.