With Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC) well underway, 565 Yemenis from all segments of society are working together to develop a new government and move away from the country's long history of corruption and authoritarian rule. The National Dialogue is a critical part of Yemen’s two-year transition from the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to national elections to be held next year.

Organizers had to scramble to find extra chairs for 340 Yemeni tribal sheikhs, governors, political party and civil society organization members, and journalists who turned out for the sixth televised town hall meeting to discuss Yemen’s highly anticipated National Dialogue Conference, which began last month. Despite an electricity outage caused by an attack on oil pipelines outside of Sana’a, the capital, participants flooded the March 13 meeting, originally arranged for just 230 people.

In mid-March, Yemen began its National Dialogue, bringing together political and civil society leaders from diverse political backgrounds to discuss the direction the country will take. As the process gets underway, new public opinion research shows that most Yemenis believe the country is headed in the right direction, though a slim majority in the south disagrees. The conclusions are based on a poll, conducted Jan. 26-Feb. 6, that consisted of 1,486 face-to-face interviews throughout the country.

The 2011 change in Yemen’s government has brought with it a first for the country – the chance for ordinary Yemenis to publicly question their political leaders about the economy, unemployment, transitional justice and other issues on their minds.