Yemeni Socialist Party
Following the failure of the insurgency in Oman in 1978 and simmering hostilities with North Yemen, Ismail had lost favour with conservative elements of the Yemeni Socialist Party and alienated his country from much of the region and the West. The Soviet Union, upon which South Yemen relied for the vast majority of its trade and financial aid, had also lost confidence in the General Secretary, policymakers within the Brezhnev administration regarding him as a loose cannon and a liability. As a result, Moscow began to encourage moderates within the YSP to remove him from power. In 1980, believing that his political rivals within the YSP were preparing to assassinate him, Ismail resigned and went into exile. His successor, Ali Nasir Muhammad, took a less interventionist stance toward both North Yemen and neighbouring Oman. The Yemeni Socialist Party was increasingly polarised between Ismail's supporters, who espoused a hard-line leftist ideology, and those of Ali Nasir Muhammad who espoused more pragmatic domestic policies and friendlier relations with other Arab states and the West.