SANAA – Yemeni president Abdullah Ali Saleh called for early elections yesterday in his first speech since returning to Yemen but his latest peace formula is unlikely to appease protesters who want nothing less than his immediate departure.
The president, speaking as a sixth day of violence raised the death toll to more than 100 lives, said he was committed to transferring power through elections.
But since the crisis began in January when protesters took to the streets demanding that he quit, the embattled Yemeni president has been prodigal in proposals to end the eight-month-old violence but followed up on none that entail him surrendering power.
Mr Saleh, who returned on Friday from Saudi Arabia where he sought treatment after a June assassination attempt, reiterated his acceptance of a Gulf power transfer and said the vice-president retained authority to hold talks with the opposition.
“Let’s all go towards dialogue, understanding and peaceful exchange of power through elections and early presidential elections,” he said in a televised speech.
Protesters, watching the speech in tents in central Change Square in Sanaa, were disappointed.
“We’re so used to this there’s nothing new in the speech. It’s the same story, the same politics, he talks to us as if we’re children,” said Mr Saeed (30), a protester watching the speech in the central square. “He’s just talking and talking about this initiative and we haven’t seen any action.”
Earlier yesterday Yemeni soldiers killed two tribal fighters and wounded 18 anti-government protesters in the latest clashes in a week of bloodshed.
For the first time since six days of battles between opposition and loyalist forces erupted in Sanaa, the clashes spread outside the capital. Two pro-opposition tribal fighters were killed in the mountainous outskirts of the town when the army shelled an area where the two sides had been clashing.
In Sanaa, soldiers used live rounds against thousands of unarmed protesters singing and chanting “God is great, Freedom” as they marched out of their protest camp and into the capital’s busy streets. – (Reuters)