THU 28 - 3 - 2024
 
Date: Mar 4, 2011
Source: The Daily Star
Saleh to respond 'positively' to opposition road map, says aide
‘This is clearly a way of getting around the youth revolution,’ says leading Sanaa activist

Friday, March 04, 2011


Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, will respond “positively” to an opposition plan for him to step down from power and reform politics, a senior aide said Thursday, as nationwide protests against his rule continued.
Yemen’s coalition of opposition parties, joined by some tribal and religious leaders, proposed a five-point “road map” this week to Saleh, who has ruled the country for 32 years.


“There will be a positive response to the proposal,” a senior official told Reuters. “The details are being discussed by the two sides right now and we’ll announce a final position at a later time,” he said. the official did not specify when.
Mohammad al-Sabry, an opposition spokesman, also said Saleh would accept the plan, but it needed approval from the street. “Even if the president accepts our initiative, he has to propose it to the people, and they will decide whether to accept it or not,” he said.


The proposal calls for a “peaceful transition of power” from Saleh, calls for the president to step down by the end of 2011, insists two-week-old demonstrations against his regime will go on, and demands a probe into a deadly crackdown on the protests.
Saleh was unable to convince opponents his previous offer to step down in 2013 was anything more than a maneuver to ward off unrest, galvanized by successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.


“This is clearly a way of getting around the youth revolution. The protesters will not accept anything other than the departure of this regime immediately and with no delays,” said Samia al-Aghbari, a leading Sanaa activist.
Thousands of demonstrators staged a march Thursday in the capital, vowing to intensify their protests until Saleh departs. “Revolution, revolution, until victory, or march toward the palace,” read their banners, referring to the Presidential Palace.


One demonstrator, Jamal Khayran, said youths would ignore and pay little attention to the proposal. “The revolution is that of the youth and not a revolt for parties, whether opposition or ruling … we will continue until the downfall of the regime,” he said.

 

Female supporters of Saleh’s General People’s Congress party staged a counter-demonstration in Sanaa.
But Hashem al-Ibara, an anti-regime protest organizer, told AFP the demonstrators would intensify their rallies from Saturday.


The opposition’s plan includes changing the Constitution, rewriting election laws to ensure fair representation in Parliament, removing Saleh’s relatives from leadership positions in the army and security forces, and guaranteeing the right to peaceful protest.


It is unclear who holds the most sway on the streets right now: youths and activists have shaped rallies that began in early January into widespread, daily protests with tens of thousands of people. The opposition is still able to draw the biggest crowds.
Tribes, the heart of Yemen’s social network, are also seen as crucial to deciding the fate of the government. Some tribal leaders once loyal to Saleh have begun to throw their weight behind the protesters.


Also Thursday, a Yemeni human-rights group said authorities have detained several police officers in the southern city of Aden because they refused to open fire on protesters. The Yemeni Organization for the Defense of Rights and Democratic Freedoms quoted the families of the police officers as saying they were told they had been transferred to Sanaa.


Protesters say they are frustrated with widespread graft and soaring unemployment in a country where 40 percent of the 23 million people live on $2 a day or less and a third face chronic hunger, and want Saleh to leave immediately.


Ahmad Salah, an army officer, also joined the crowd of protesters in Sanaa Thursday, saying: “I’m not afraid, this is fate. It is inevitable that the demands of the people for the fall of the regime are met.”
Tens of thousands have camped out in central squares, from the capital of Sanaa to southern Aden, once the capital of the independent south where most of the 24 people who have been killed in protests died. – Agencies


 



 
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