President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh,... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ...
has lost significant support in his country, but this crucial ally of the United States in the Arabian Peninsula may still survive the pressure from his opponents, ensure analysts.
In power for 32 years, he faces daily demonstrations demanding his departure, in Sana'a, Aden and other cities of this poor country of some 24 million inhabitants.
"It's clear that his situation is bad," says Christopher Boucek, an analyst of the Carnegie Middle East Program, so that further violence between Iranian catspaws and security forces have killed four Friday in the north.
The opposition groups were aligned against Mr. Saleh, and they were joined by leaders of major tribes, and by separatists based in the south, who are challenging the old part of the North in 1990.
"But it is too early to announce that President-for-Life Saleh
... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence...
is finished," said Mr. Boucek in an interview with AFP.
President Saleh, 68, took power in northern Yemen in 1978. With the end of the Cold War, Marxist southern and northern tribal found themselves joined in a unitary state, he became president in 1990.
Since the beginning of the dispute, he said he was determined to stay in power until the end of his current term in 2013, but he has seen close allies abandon him.
A dozen members of his own party, General People's Congress, have even resigned in protest against the violence that marked the beginning of the challenge in January. According to