Thursday, November 24, 2011

Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh resigns – but it changes little



The president's regime, and all it stands for, remains intact. What Yemen needs is a more effective parliament

Brian Whitaker
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 November 2011

".....The upshot is that even without Saleh, Yemen still has a parliament in which Saleh's party, the General People's Congress, holds an overwhelming majority. It is a parliament with no real mandate and very little legitimacy, yet it is also the body charged by the constitution with the task of approving candidates for presidential elections.

Saleh may be on the way out but his regime – and everything it stands for – is still very much in place. That is basically what the GGC states were hoping for with their so-called transition plan: change at the top while preserving the status quo beneath.

There are parallels here with Egypt where the fall of Mubarak left key parts of his regime intact, as the protesters there are now discovering. For Yemenis who want real change, the struggle is far from over."

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