SANAA, 25 June 2006 — Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said yesterday that he would run for re-election next September, going back on a promise he made last year that he would step down.
“In response to your appeals, I will stay with you on board the nation’s ship,” the 64-year-old Saleh told hundreds of thousands of supporters at a rally at Sabyin Square in Sanaa when he announced his change of mind. “I comply with the pressure from the masses, and I will run in the coming elections,” Saleh said through loudspeakers.
Later in the day, his ruling General People’s Congress party declared him the party’s presidential candidate.
Saleh, who has been at the helm since 1978, announced last year that he would not seek a new seven-year term. Pro-Saleh rallies were held in several cities all over the country to show support for him and urge him to stand in the elections.
Saleh, a stocky man with a charismatic face and a piercing gaze, ruled North Yemen for 12 years. When North and South Yemen merged in May 1990, he took over the presidency of the new state.
In 1999, he was elected with a 96 percent margin to a seven-year term in the country’s first universal suffrage presidential election. His term ends in September, but the constitution allows him to hold office for one more term.
The pragmatic Saleh has learned the skills of compromise between a complicated tribal structure and Islamists and winning the former’s support which is crucial for political survival in a society dominated by tribal groupings.
Saleh has survived several setbacks, the worst in 1994 when military forces loyal to him crushed an attempted southern secession. The victory also strengthened his rule.
