SANA'A: As Yemen's Vice-President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi is launching the beginning of his presidential campaign, calling on all Yemenis to participate in what he calls “the cornerstone of the new Yemen,” President Ali Abdullah Saleh who is currently in the United States to undergo medical treatment, announced that he would be back in time to cast his ballot. The embattled autocrat, who many politicians and foreign officials would have rather seen disappeared from Yemen's political life for good, is said to be determined to make a comeback in his homeland and organize the opposition. And as many members of the General People's Congress are pointing out, “President Saleh is still the legitimate ruler of the GPC and as such, he will continue to be an inherent part of Yemen's political make-up.” Others, mostly from the Joint Meeting Party are warning that a return of the autocrat would trigger another bout of violence, threatening not only to jeopardize the coming presidential elections but more importantly the entire power-transfer process. A political analyst and Yemeni journalist, Hakim Al-Masmari, recently wrote that Saleh was working at cancelling the elections, forcing VP Hadi to seek a vote from the Parliament to access the presidency. He added that since the GPC controlled the majority of the parliamentary seats, Hadi could see his request rejected, leaving Saleh the only elected ruler of Yemen. Former advisors to Saleh confirmed that the President and his immediate family were looking at ways to return to power. “Saleh knows that as long as he controls the military, which he does, not all is lost for him. He wants to return to power by sabotaging the power-transfer and appear once more to the West as the only candidate capable of bringing stability to Yemen. He knows only too well that his return will ignite an armed conflict…He is planning for it, he has been preparing for it actually,” said Governor Boogheiti, who refused to comment further on the matter. Security in Yemen remains extremely fragile with reports in the northern provinces of further sectarian clashes in between Shia militants and Salafists in Hajjah. Several tribal leaders in the eastern province of Hadramaut have called for a boycott of the elections, saying that this “false attempt at democracy was an insult to the blood of the martyrs”, urging their people not to cast their vote. Similar calls were repeated throughout the south, highlighting the little popular support that the GCC proposal is generating in the country and the dangers another popular uprising could have on the already war-torn nation. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/dap7w Tags: Elections, Hadi, Return, Saleh Section: Latest News, Yemen
