Good luck to soon to be new Yemeni President Hadi!
Bios below. Hadi’s not a “southerner” in that he defected to Saleh in 1986 and fought against the south in 1994. Hopefully he will rise to the occasion, sometimes people do that. We’ll have to see. Its going to be lovely though to see Saleh out of office after all these years.
SANA’A — Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi used to be known as a silent man who never objected to, let alone disobeyed, any of Ali Abdullah Saleh’s orders.
This manner of managing the country resulted in the peaceful youth revolution, which began in February of 2011 and which led to Hadi becoming Yemen’s new president.
Hadi departed from the south with Ali Naser Mohamed after the January 1986 war between leaders of the Aden’s Socialist Party. He and Mohamed left for Sana’a after they suffered defeat in Aden.
In the 1994 war, Hadi sided with Saleh against the secession movement which surfaced in the same year and which, by year’s end, was aligned with Saleh. During the outgoing president’s 33-year rule, Hadi received the respect of all parties, due largely to a perception that he kept his hands clean of political and moral corruption.
Yemen’s peaceful revolution has gone through various phases and ups and downs to reach a political settlement to respond to demands for change.The international community’s involvement as a third party in the process may at least allow people to feel safe from Saleh and his family, who showed no signs of aspiration for change.
The February 21 election will not be democratic in any philosophic sense; it is more a consensus caesarean operation to end the 33-year-long family-dictatorial period of rule. And the more votes there end up being, the more strength Hadi will possess to rule.
The over $ 48 million which has been spent to hold the election has not been wasted. There is one candidate and the result is already known, but act of voting will be akin to taking revenge against Saleh and his aides.
Since the article was written, Field Marshal Saleh appointed General Hadi to the rank of Field Marshal.
The National: Mr Hadi was born in Thukain, a small village in the southern Abyan Governorate. He graduated from Britain’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1966 and then quietly rose through the military ranks of the then independent, Communist south, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.
In 1986, a brief civil war in the south convinced Mr Hadi to defect to the north. Mr Saleh, then North Yemen’s leader, made him his personal military adviser.
The two briefly fought each as rival military commanders over the city of Taiz in 1972. But Mr Saleh found use of Mr Hadi’s military skills and knowledge of the south, appointing him defence minister in 1994. That was when Mr Hadi helped crush the south’s attempted secession from the union.
Although that made him few friends in the south, he was rewarded by Mr Saleh with the vice presidency in October 1994.
Since then, observers say he has done little.
