Yemeni President May Agree to Step Down by End of Year

SANAA, Yemen -- President Ali Abdullah Saleh today "favorably received" an opposition proposal that includes a stipulation that the embattled Yemeni leader step down by the end of the year, a government spokesman said.

The opposition's so-called "five-point" proposal calls for a peaceful transition of power in the next nine months, allowing Saleh to retire gracefully after a 32-year presidency. For nearly three weeks, massive protests in cities and provinces across Yemen have called for his immediate removal.

"The president has agreed on a series of steps that he will take to leave power with no inheritance in a period [that] will not extend beyond this year," the Joint Meetings Party, Yemen's political opposition coalition, said in a statement.

A government spokesman said the president held "fruitful meetings" with key opposition figures, religious scholars and tribal sheiks discussing the plan, although the details were still being hashed out.

The spokesman, who asked that his name not be used, said the president and opposition had found "common ground." But despite the Joint Meetings Party's claim, he did not confirm that Saleh had actually agreed to step down this year.

It was also unclear under what circumstances the president would leave -- or whether his acceptance of the plan would change the situation on the ground in Yemen, where the protest movement is factionalized. While Yemen's official political opposition leaders have endorsed the plan, students, tribal leaders and other members of the political opposition say the Joint Meetings Party does not speak for them.

"If he agrees to this, it's an agreement with the opposition party -- not with us," said Adel al-Surabi, a spokesman for the pro-democracy youth movement in Sanaa, Yemen's capital. "We don't agree to the agreement. We want Saleh to resign immediately, along with all of his family members in positions of power over the army and other parts of the government. We're not leaving until our demands are met."

The president has already made a number of concessions to protesters, including a promise that he will not run for re-election in 2013, that his son will not succeed him and that he will pursue significant anti-corruption measures within his government.

Most of the protesters gathered late at night in a sit-in outside Sanaa University, the epicenter of the anti-Saleh protests in the capital, hadn't yet heard of the opposition's proposal. Those who had were not pleased.

"We will not wait the rest of the year for him to step down," said student Zakarya al-Anesi. "We will not leave here until the president goes first. End of story."

The opposition's "five-point" plan stipulates that all Yemenis, both inside and outside Yemen, should be involved in discussions to form a new government. It also says that all Yemenis are free to protest peacefully, that a committee should be formed to investigate the attacks against protesters in recent weeks and that the families of those protesters who died will be compensated by the government.

In addition to mass protests calling for his removal, Saleh faces a triumvirate of problems in Yemen, including a separatist movement in the south; an on-again, off-again war with Houthi rebels in the northern territories; and an active threat from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Many analysts believe that Saleh, a tribal strongman with a Machiavellian flair for political maneuverings, is the only political leader in Yemen now who could maintain peace over the country's factionalized and heavily armed population.

"If the president and opposition do no make a deal soon, I see civil war," said Abdul-Ghani al-Iryani, a prominent political analyst in Sanaa. "The longer discussions go on, the more likely civil war is. I think everybody recognizes that."