Yemen's Saleh Threatens to Pull Loyalists from Cabinet

Veteran Yemeni strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, who quit as president last month under a hard-won transfer of power deal, has threatened to pull his loyalists from a unity cabinet that is another key part of the agreement, a top official said Tuesday.

President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, elected as Saleh's successor last month in a vote in which his was the only name on the ballot paper, is scrambling to persuade his predecessor not to make good on the threat, the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Hadi has appointed a committee of leading politicians in a bid "to convince Saleh to abandon his threats," the official said.

If the commission fails to secure a change of heart, "the president will have to form a new government of national unity," the official added.

The 34-member unity cabinet, appointed in December in accordance with the transition deal, has equal numbers of ministers from Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) party and the parliamentary opposition's Common Forum alliance.

Under the terms of the Gulf-brokered agreement which he signed with the opposition in November, Saleh gave up the Sanaa presidency that he had held since 1978.

But he retains the leadership of the GPC and aides have not ruled out his standing in a contested presidential election due to be held alongside new parliamentary polls in 2014.

Over the past week, the pro-Saleh press has stepped up its criticism of the unity government of Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa and in a speech last week the former president accused it of being "weak" and of "not understanding anything about politics."

The Gulf-brokered transition deal brought an end to 10 months of deadly violence between Saleh opponents and loyalist troops, which ended up splitting the security forces and fanning an insurgency in the south and east by militants loyal to al-Qaida.

Since taking over as president, Hadi has struggled to grapple with the huge challenges facing the Arab world's poorest nation, which also include a Shiite rebellion in the far north and a growing campaign for secession in the formerly independent south.