ABSTRACT
In mid-January 2011, Yemen became directly affected by the developments of the Arab uprisings. Under the impression of the popular protests in Tunisia and the eventual subversion of the Ben Ali regime, an increasing number of Yemenis took to the streets and protested against widespread corruption,1 the country’s overall poor economic condition,2 the high unemployment rate, President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s intention to change the constitution allowing him to stay in office indefinitely, and Saleh’s apparent grooming of his son Ahmad Ali, the head of the Republican Guard, as his successor. First sporadic protests occurred in the week following Ben Ali’s ouster. At first, the protests were strongest in the south of Yemen, with thousands demonstrating in the city of Taiz. Preexisting widespread separatist aspirations added to the anti-governmental mood in the southern part of the country and motivated many to protest against the Saleh regime. On January 27, the first mass protests occurred in Sana’a with 10,000 to 15,000 demonstrators at Sana’a University and roughly 6,000 other protesters elsewhere in the Yemeni capital. Protesters included teenagers and young adults as well as individuals affiliated with the parliamentary opposition and civil rights organizations. In this initial phase, the parliamentary opposition was calling for profound political reforms rather than the fall of the Saleh regime. However, some protesters were already calling for Saleh’s ouster.3 Nonetheless, as the independent Yemeni political analyst Abdulghani Al Iryani assessed at the time:
There is no reason for th[ese] protests to develop [. . .] into a movement that could bring trouble to the regime. [. . .] The police have been very responsible and constrained. If they continue like that, that’s a good sign. [T]o stop these demonstrations the ruling party needs to go back to the negotiating table. [. . .] The ruling party can give concessions that will satisfy the demands of the JMP [the Joint Meeting Party, a coalition of the parliamentary oppositional parties] without even threatening its dominant position in parliament and political life. I think the positive results [of the protests] will be that the regime will call for national dialogue.4
