Yemenis elect successor to Saleh

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Yemen sealed President Ali Abdullah Saleh's exit from power today by electing his deputy to shepherd the country away from the brink of civil war.

Vice president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the sole, consensus candidate, billed the vote as a way to move on after months of protests against Mr Saleh's 33-year rule, but the president's sons and nephews still command key army units and security agencies.

"Elections are the only exit route from the crisis which has buffeted Yemen for the past year," Mr Hadi said at a polling station after casting his vote.

The vote will make Mr Saleh, now in the United States for more treatment of burns suffered in an assassination attempt last June, the fourth Arab autocrat in a year to be forced from power after revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

At stake is an economy left in shambles, where 42 per cent of the population of 24 million lives on less than $2 per day and rampant inflation is driving up food and fuel prices.

Long queues formed early in the morning outside polling stations in the capital Sanaa amid tight security, after an explosion ripped through a voting center in the southern port city of Aden on the eve of the vote.

"We are now declaring the end of the Ali Abdullah Saleh era and will build a new Yemen," Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakul Karman said as she waited to cast her ballot outside a university faculty in the capital Sanaa.

Voters dipped their thumbs in ink and stamped their print on a ballot paper bearing a picture of Mr Hadi and a map of Yemen in the colors of the rainbow.

A high turnout was crucial to give Mr Hadi the legitimacy he needs to carry out changes outlined in a power transfer deal brokered by Yemen's Gulf neighbors, including the drafting of a new constitution, restructuring of armed forces in which Mr Saleh's relatives hold key positions, and multi-party elections.

An official from the election security committee estimated a turnout of 80 per cent, although final results will not be known for two to three days. The vote was backed by the United States and Yemen's rich neighbors led by Saudi Arabia, who - alarmed at signs of al Qaeda exploiting the disorder wracking the country to strengthen its regional foothold - sponsored the peace deal signed in November providing for Mr Saleh to hand power to Mr Hadi.

A pickup truck mounted with anti-aircraft guns and full of soldiers stood by another Sanaa University department as hundreds of men lined up to vote.

"The regime may not have changed but the people have. It's the first step towards real change," said Samir Radwan, a 43-year-old doctor.

"Saleh was taking us to hell. We stopped him and we are now starting to build a new Yemen."

The election leaves unresolved a military standoff between Mr Saleh's relatives, a mutinous general and gunmen loyal to tribal notables. There is an armed revolt in the north of the country and a secessionist movement in the south where Islamists accused of links to al Qaeda have also made advances.

It was not clear who was behind Monday's violence.

Source: Irish Times.
Link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0221/breaking3.html.