Fears of violence as opposition rejects polls in Yemen
SANA’A: Yemeni voters were to head for the polls today, ending President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule and thus making Yemen the first Arab state where a revolt has led to a negotiated settlement.
The referendum-like poll, in which Saleh’s deputy is standing as the sole consensus candidate, is being boycotted by two major opposition groups: the separatist Southern Movement and the northern Shia rebels.
But the main proponents of the uprising that began in January last year have asked Yemenis to support Abd-rabbu Mansour Hadi, whose posters have been plastered across buildings and throughout the streets of the capital, Sana’a.
Hardline factions of the Southern Movement have gone as far as calling for preventing the election from taking place at all, and making today a day of “civil disobedience” to disrupt voting.
Attacks on polling stations and clashes between troops and anti-election protesters in the south have raised fears that polling day could be marred by violence.
Such fears had prompted authorities to deploy 103 000 soldiers to guard polling stations, said Mohammed Yahya, chairman of the Electoral Commission.
Hadi, himself a southerner, told southern separatists and northern rebels on Sunday that he would address their concerns, adding that “dialogue and only dialogue” can resolve these long-standing conflicts.
Yemen’s new president will rule for an interim two-year period, after which presidential and parliamentary elections will be held, a condition of the Gulfbrokered transition deal signed by Saleh in November.
However, Saleh’s shadow looms large over today’s vote.
The veteran strongman maintains a strong hold over the most powerful security forces and there is also speculation that he might return from the US, where he is receiving medical treatment, as soon as tomorrow. Saleh has called for Yemenis to support Hadi in the election.
The turnout in the single-candidate election will give some idea of the support Hadi, 66, has from his countrymen to lead the transitional period.
In a televised speech yesterday, he promised “radical reforms” and stressed the need to reunify the army.
The military has been divided since last March when some units defected to support the uprising against Saleh’s rule.
Hadi also pledged to fight al-qaeda and its growing influence in the lawless south and eastern provinces. – SAPA-AFP