Death date: December 4, Birth place: Bayt al-Ahmar, Kingdom of Yemen. Marriages: Married names unavailable publicly. Read More. Children: Has children, including sons Ahmed and Khaled. Education: Did not finish elementary school. Religion: Zaydi Shiite Muslim. Timeline: - Joins the army of the Kingdom of Yemen. The marriage quickly soured, though, with the south frustrated by what it saw as its economic marginalisation at the hands of the northern-dominated government.
When civil war broke out in mid, and the South seceded in May of that year, its separation would last only two months, before its military was crushed by the North, placing Saleh once again at the helm of a unified Yemen. Saudi Arabia responded by expelling more than a million Yemeni workers from the Kingdom, depriving countless Yemeni families of vital remittances. After the September 11 attacks, Saleh tried to position himself as an important ally of the United States.
He allowed American drone aircrafts to kill alleged al-Qaeda targets on Yemeni soil, and in return, Yemen became the recipient of tens of millions of dollars in American aid. At the onset of the uprising, Yemen was one of the poorest countries in the world, with widespread unemployment and persistent inflation, its billions of dollars in oil revenues embezzled or wasted.
As the protest movement grew, Saleh failed to stave off accusations that he was seeking constitutional amendments, one of which included amending the presidential term of office from five to seven years. This prompted speculation that Saleh wanted to remain in office until , allowing his son Ahmed to reach the age of 40 — the minimum age for a Yemeni to become president — as per the constitution.
Demonstrations also spread to several other Yemeni cities, with the southern city of Taiz emerging as an epicentre. When the turnout at some rallies reached hundreds of thousands of people, several high-ranking military officers deserted Saleh.
Tensions mounted further after a particularly brutal crackdown on March 18, when at least 50 protesters were killed by snipers in Sanaa. General Ali Mohsen Saleh was the first to go. He ordered the troops under his command to protect the protesters. Hamid al-Ahmar, a prominent businessman, was seen as a possible successor to Saleh, while his brother, Hussein al-Ahmar, quit the ruling party in February and publicly rebuked Saleh.
In the early days of the protests, he portrayed the opposition as a conspiracy to destroy the country — a theme he repeatedly used during his decades in power. Saleh later offered to step down, promising to hand power over to a civilian government. The opposition rejected that offer, holding out for a more immediate resignation. The former president also tried to buy his way out of trouble, offering tens of thousands of dollars and new cars to tribal elders.
But his tribal support, which constitutes his main power base, was eroding. President of Yemen for 34 years whose refusal to leave the political stage plunged his country into further turmoil. Between and , the Yemen Arab Republic had three presidents in quick succession. Two were assassinated and the third fled after less than a month in office. A four-man presidential council then took over, in which Saleh soon emerged as leader. With minimal education, he had risen through the military but had little in the way of a political base — a problem that he set about correcting during his first few years in office.
What he lacked in education he made up for with his shrewd handling of people, gradually building a consensus which, besides the military, embraced businessmen and technocrats along with tribal and religious leaders.
He had no particular ideology beyond republicanism and nationalism. This initially resulted in a power-sharing agreement for the unified state — a coalition in which the ruling party from each side shared power and a presidential council chaired by Saleh with Ali Salem al-Beidh, the southern leader, as his deputy. At the same time, Yemen opened up its political system; new newspapers and magazines proliferated and more than 20 parties competed in the parliamentary elections — the first to be held in the Arabian peninsula under universal suffrage.
Promising as this seemed at the time, it was something of a mirage. The former regimes of north and south had unresolved differences which were allowed to persist under the guise of democratic differences rather than using democracy as a means to resolve them. From , at the opposite end of the country, Saleh also fought an intermittent war against Zaidi rebels known as the Houthis, as well as militants linked to al-Qaida in various parts of the country.
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