Faisal Bin Shamlan

Faisal Othman Bin Shamlan was a Yemeni intellectual, technocrat, political reformist and public figure. He was a Yemeni member of parliament who had held the post of Oil and Mineral Resources Minister in the post-unification government of Yemen. Prior to the reunification of Yemen in 1990, Shamlan was the Minister of Infrastructure and Oil in the socialist government of South Yemen. He was the recognized presidential candidate of the Yemeni opposition coalition, a coalition which consists of the Islamist Islah, the Yemen Socialist Party and several smaller parties, in the 2006 presidential election, but was defeated by incumbent president Ali Abdullah Saleh.