SANA’A: Yemeni Nobel peace laureate Tawakkul Karman warned in an interview with AFP that her country’s transition process is on the brink of collapse and demanded ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh be banned from politics.
The activist, who was a leading figure during the youth uprising in Yemen in 2011, also claimed that President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi is unable to implement his plans to reshape Yemen’s security forces because he does not control the army.
“The main obstacle facing the political transition and threatening its viability is the fact that Ali Abdullah Saleh remains a president of the General People’s Congress,” the former ruling party, Karman said. She pointed out that Saleh’s party is supposed to present more than 20 percent of participants in an envisaged national dialogue aimed at drafting a new constitution and preparing for fresh elections in February 2014.
“The ousted president is the one to choose the GPC’s representatives,” she said, adding that Saleh’s party “rejects the dialogue”. Karman insisted that the former head of state “should exit politics completely”. “He has a lot of money that he uses to destroy Yemen, harm the political process and execute vengeance,” she charged.
Saleh was eased out of office after 33 years in powers thanks to a UN-backed and Gulf-brokered deal that ended a year of protests that rocked the impoverished southern Arabian Peninsula nation.
The agreement reached in November 2011 with the opposition gave Saleh and his aides immunity from prosecution, but it did not stipulate a political ban on him. AFP
