SANAA: Yemen’s vice president announced the formation of a national unity government Wednesday as part of a power transfer deal to ease embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power and end months of political turmoil, the state news agency said.

SABA said Vice President Abd-Rabbou Mansour Hadi issued a decree approving the formation of the new 35-member Cabinet headed by the veteran independent politician Mohammad Basindawa. Government posts are equally divided between Saleh’s Congress Party and the opposition.

Basindawa told the Associated Press that his government faces grave challenges, but said “we will work with all our potential to overcome any hurdle or difficulty.”

Congress Party members will head the Defense, Foreign Affairs and Oil ministries while opposition politicians will lead the Interior, Finance and Information ministries. The Cabinet also included two women, one from each side.
Saleh’s ministers for foreign affairs and defense, Abou Bakr al-Qirbi and Mohammad Nasser Ahmad Ali respectively, have retained their old posts, according to the decree published by state news agency SABA.

However, the Interior Ministry has been entrusted to a member of the opposition, Abdul-Qader Qahtani, and the human rights portfolio goes to Houriyya Mashhur, spokeswoman of the National Council, an opposition umbrella group.

In addition to the Interior portfolio going to Qahtani, who is close to the opposition Islamist Al-Islah (Reform) party, Islah member Mohammad Said al-Saadi becomes planning and international cooperation minister.
Two opposition independents, Sakher al-Wajih and Ali Ahmad al-Amarani, become finance and information ministers respectively.

The national unity government is part of the power transfer deal signed last month in the Saudi capital Riyadh by Saleh and the opposition allows Saleh to step down after 33 years in power in exchange for immunity from prosecution. If the U.S.-backed deal brokered by Yemen’s powerful Gulf Arab neighbors holds, Saleh will be the fourth dictator pushed from power this year by the “Arab Spring” uprisings.

Basindawa said the government will focus on providing public services to the people including electricity, water, fuel and basic commodities together with restoring security and stability. These staples have been lacking since the anti-Saleh protests broke out in February.

The new government is expected to present its program to the parliament for approval within 10 days.
Political analyst and writer Omar Abdul-Aziz said the greatest hurdle facing the government is “the existence of power centers in the regime and the relatives of Saleh who don’t want him to leave office.”

He said these power bases would create crises to blow up the situation, much like what happened Tuesday and Wednesday, when opposition forces and government troops exchanged fire in the central part of the capital Sanaa.
Neither side gave figures for casualties, but an eyewitness said that one civilian had been killed and four wounded by government shells, and that security checkpoints were preventing ambulances from entering the street to evacuate the wounded.
Hours before approving his Cabinet, Basindawa accused Saleh’s outgoing ministers of systematically looting government properties.