Yemenis demand president's removal
Several members of the Yemeni president’s ruling Congress party have resigned as tens of thousands of people again took to the streets to demand his removal.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key US ally in fighting an al Qaida offshoot in his country, refuses to budge and rejected a proposal from a coalition of opposition groups to end the political stand-off by agreeing to step down by the end of the year.
The region-wide unrest hit Yemen just around the time President Hosni Mubarak was stepping down in Egypt in early February.
Yemenis, the poorest people in the Arab world, had similar complaints over government corruption, poverty and a lack of political freedom.
Mr Saleh, who has held on to power for 32 years despite numerous threats to his rule, has failed to quell the anti-government outpouring with a pledge not to run for re-election in 2013.
He also promised not to install his son as a successor, as many suspected he was intent to do.
Nevertheless, in a sign that he still feels he has room to manoeuvre, Mr Saleh today rejected his opponents’ suggestion that he quit sooner.
A press statement from the president’s office said the opposition’s “five-point plan is vague and ambiguous” and that the president reiterated his pledge not to run again when his current term expires in 2013.
“The constitution is a reference for all (of us) and any attempt to violate it cannot be accepted,” the statement said.
Mr Saleh’s reference to the constitution drew scoffs from protesters.
“The regime’s adherence to the rules of the constitution is pathetic because this regime itself has trampled on the constitution over long decades,” said Redwan Massoud, a protest leader at the capital’s Sanaa University.
Massoud said protesters were not interested in dialogue.
“Our only demand is that the president should leave,” he said.
The government has suspended classes at universities in the capital, Sanaa, and the southern port city of Aden that have been focal points for daily demonstrations inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
Protesters rallied in the main squares of Sanaa, Aden, Taiz and Hadramawt. They demanded the president step down and called for an investigation into the killing of four people during Friday’s protest in the northern town of Harf Sofyan.
