Yemen is not Egypt – a flood of high-level resignations could trigger a battle for the top
Brian Whitaker
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 March 2011
"The 32-year rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh appeared almost at an end on Monday as erstwhile stalwarts of his regime queued up to desert him and announce they were joining the opposition.
The writing had been on the wall since Friday, when 52 protesters in the capital were massacred by Saleh loyalists. Even by the violent standards of Yemeni politics, this was viewed by many as a shocking and unacceptable development.
A trickle of high-level resignations over the last few weeks turned to a flood on Monday when the president's kinsman, General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, announced he was switching sides.
Ali Muhsin's defection was the real tipping point. Because of his position in the military, it effectively means the end of the Saleh regime....
In Egypt, during the overthrow of President Mubarak, it was possible to view the military as a (comparatively) benign force managing the transition, but it is much more difficult to take a similar view of the military in Yemen.
It is certainly possible that Ali Muhsin will lay claim to the Yemeni revolution and in the process try to establish himself as the country's new strongman. He may be supported in that by those who fear turmoil as a result of ousting Saleh.
On the other hand, though there's little doubt about Ali Muhsin's ambitions, he is not the only powerful player in Yemen....
The need in the current situation is to achieve some sort of collaborative balance among all these competing elements, rather than another period of domination by a single figure at the top."
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