50 members, and concentrates on developing activists among its current membership. B. Party Leadership The Islah party has three main factions: the intellectual-reformist wing with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood movement of the 1960s, the tribal group, and the conservative(radical) group. Diversity in the Islah party tends to follow these fault lines. The group of intellectual founding members tends to be more progressive, while the conservative group tends towards policies in common with other radical regional Islamic groups. The tribal group is the faction most in line with the President’s wing of the GPC and least contentious as an opposition party. The conservative group is more confrontational, and therefore more likely to push Islah in its role as an opposition party. So, talking about the racial, ethnic, religious and gender composition of leadership, although most rank and file members of the Islah party are ideologically similar to the intellectual-reformist wing(the Muslim Brotherhood), the Sana’ani group and tribal groups tend to wield dis­proportionate power. This is a result of the continued importance tribal­ism and northernism in determining politics, authority, and power in Yemen. Thus, since membership and leadership of the Islah party consists overwhelmingly of Muslims from the Shafa’i(Sunni and Salafi) sect, this reflects itself on the nature of leadership, though northernism, which is presented in Islah by the Tribal Group, is traditionally associ­ated with the Zaydi sect. The party, as a result, does not have a strong appeal for Yemen’s Zaydi Muslims(especially the Hashemite families, an important social/religious class). It explains the party’s weak elec­toral performance in certain areas whose population is predominantly Zaydi. Like all parties in Yemen, the senior leadership of Islah is almost en­tirely male. Of course, there are a number of very active female mem-