Perilous
Times
Yemen president promises to step down
Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s veteran president, has promised not to
seek re-election in 2013 in an attempt to pacify growing street
protests calling on him to resign.
Yemen president to step down
By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent 2:04PM GMT 02 Feb
2011
The Telegraph UK
Mr Saleh, an important if mercurial US ally who has held
presidential office since 1978, became the latest leader to offer
political concessions in the face of growing popular unrest across
the Arab world.
His announcement came after Yemen’s opposition called on its
supporters to stage a “day of rage” in major cities, including the
capital Sana’a, on Thursday. Protests, inspired by popular revolts
in Egypt and Tunisia, have already drawn thousands onto the
streets in recent days amid growing discontent over unemployment,
which stands at 40 per cent, and rising prices.
Clearly unnerved by the pace of developments in the region, Mr
Saleh was also forced to abandon a suspected plan to create a
family dynasty by promising not to hand power to his son Ahmed,
the powerful head of Yemen’s Republican guard.
“I won’t seek to extend my presidency for another term or have my
son inherit it,” he told an emergency session of parliament. “No
to hereditary rule and no to life presidency.”
Mr Saleh’s concession marks a major reversal of policy. Last
month, he introduced a constitutional amendment to parliament that
would have effectively made him president for life.
It is unclear whether the president has done enough to pacify the
protesters. Many Yemenis will remember that Mr Saleh announced he
would contest presidential elections held in 2006, a position he
only abandoned three months before the poll after street
demonstrations erupted, ostensibly spontaneously, begging him to
stay.
Opposition leaders reacted cautiously to the president’s latest
pledge but refused to cancel Thursday’s planned rally.
“We consider this initiative positive and we await concrete
steps,” said Mohammed al-Saadi, undersecretary of the Islamist
Islah party, Yemen’s largest opposition bloc. “As for our plan for
a rally tomorrow, the plan stands and it will organised and
orderly.”
The United States will be watching developments with concern, not
least because Yemen has emerged as a leading base for militants
linked to al Qaeda.
Although Mr Saleh has on occasion been viewed as unpredictable and
obstinate by officials in Washington, he has allowed US special
forces to take action against the country’s main extremist group
al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP).
AQAP was behind a failed plot to blow up a US airliner over
Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009.
Covert US activities in the country have angered many ordinary
Yemenis and President Saleh faced deep embarrassment after
diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks, the whistleblowing
website, disclosed that he had passed off US air strikes as the
work of his own forces.
US officials fear that Mr Saleh’s successor may be less amenable
to Washington’s demands, particularly if he emerges from Islah.
The party’s membership is mainly drawn from the moderate Islamists
of the Muslim Brotherhood but also includes a number of Salafists,
whose interpretation of Islam is highly conservative.
Because he gave virtually all the most powerful positions in the
military to members of his family, Mr Saleh’s departure risks
creating a power vacuum that could embolden separatists in the
north and south to step up their rebellions against the state.