For 33 years a portrait of Yemen's president hung above the gate of al-Nahrayn, a crowded secondary school in the capital, Sana'a. Every morning, students would assemble in the school's leafy courtyard to salute the image of their leader and sing the national anthem. On Saturday, students arrived to find the picture had disappeared. In its place is a glossy print of a young woman in a pink headscarf, smiling as she places a vote in a ballot box. "February 21 is the beginning of a new era in the life of Yemen," reads the poster.
After a year of mass protests, bloodshed and political wrangling, Yemenis go to the polls on Tuesday to vote their embattled ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh, out of office, a position he has clung to for more than three decades. By the end of February, the 67-year-old autocrat is to hand over authority to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the sole candidate in the upcoming presidential vote. If all goes according to plan, Saleh will be the fourth Arab leader to be ousted by the mass uprisings of last year. Tuesday's vote is the fruit of a transfer deal, backed by the U.S., that eased Saleh – who is in New York undergoing medical treatment for injuries suffered in a bomb attack last June – from power in November in exchange for immunity from prosecution over the alleged killing of hundreds of protesters. The deal was hammered out by Yemen's Gulf neighbors. It avoids both genuine elections and accountability for the regime's brutal crackdowns on protesters, but has been touted by regional and western powers as a triumph of diplomacy.
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