Saleh clings to power despite unrest
Source: Agencies |
July 4, 2011, Monday
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YEMEN'S president, in hospital in Riyadh, will not cede power until he returns to oversee a transition, a Yemeni Cabinet official said yesterday, extending a period of political limbo.
The fractious Arabian Peninsula state has been paralysed by six-months of mass protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's three-decade rule. After surviving an assassination attempt last month, Saleh went to Saudi Arabia for treatment.
As Saleh clings to power and the political impasse drags on, the southern Abyan province has descended into violence with militants suspected of ties to al-Qaida seizing two cities.
The United States and neighboring Saudi Arabia fear a power vacuum in the impoverished country that sits on the border of the world's top oil exporter and which hosts an al-Qaida branch that has launched failed attacks on US and Saudi targets.
They have been pushing for an immediate power transfer. The cabinet official visiting the president yesterday said Saleh planned to support a Gulf Arab transition plan that has already collapsed three times when the president backed out of signing at the last minute.
"Saleh plans to support the Gulf Cooperation Council deal and he asked the foreign minister to do everything to make the plan succeed," said the official. "But in order for the power to be transitioned, the president has to be in Yemen."
He also said Saleh expected to manage the transition himself: "To have a proper election you would need six to eight months and during that period Saleh will still be president."
Analysts have said the suspected bomb planted in Saleh's mosque last month would prevent the 69-year-old leader from resuming power even though it did not kill him.
Opposition groups and the hundreds of thousands protesting across Yemen want an immediate change in government, which Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has run in Saleh's absence.
Despite the defection of several military leaders and hundreds of troops, Saleh's son remains in control of the powerful Republican Guard that protesters in Taiz said tried to attack their camp on Saturday. Armed tribesmen defending the protesters shot dead four soldiers and wounded 12 others.
With talks in limbo, Yemen plans to step up military action.
The fractious Arabian Peninsula state has been paralysed by six-months of mass protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's three-decade rule. After surviving an assassination attempt last month, Saleh went to Saudi Arabia for treatment.
As Saleh clings to power and the political impasse drags on, the southern Abyan province has descended into violence with militants suspected of ties to al-Qaida seizing two cities.
The United States and neighboring Saudi Arabia fear a power vacuum in the impoverished country that sits on the border of the world's top oil exporter and which hosts an al-Qaida branch that has launched failed attacks on US and Saudi targets.
They have been pushing for an immediate power transfer. The cabinet official visiting the president yesterday said Saleh planned to support a Gulf Arab transition plan that has already collapsed three times when the president backed out of signing at the last minute.
"Saleh plans to support the Gulf Cooperation Council deal and he asked the foreign minister to do everything to make the plan succeed," said the official. "But in order for the power to be transitioned, the president has to be in Yemen."
He also said Saleh expected to manage the transition himself: "To have a proper election you would need six to eight months and during that period Saleh will still be president."
Analysts have said the suspected bomb planted in Saleh's mosque last month would prevent the 69-year-old leader from resuming power even though it did not kill him.
Opposition groups and the hundreds of thousands protesting across Yemen want an immediate change in government, which Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has run in Saleh's absence.
Despite the defection of several military leaders and hundreds of troops, Saleh's son remains in control of the powerful Republican Guard that protesters in Taiz said tried to attack their camp on Saturday. Armed tribesmen defending the protesters shot dead four soldiers and wounded 12 others.
With talks in limbo, Yemen plans to step up military action.
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