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 ...

of the People's Republic of South Yemen. Al-Shaabi's National Liberation Front (NLF) political organisation wrested control of the country from the British and won political supremacy over the opposition Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (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 upri ...

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 to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

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 le ...

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 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 metr ...

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 an ...

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 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