Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi of Yemen officially took over as country’s interim president on Sunday, after the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Saudi Arabia, where he will receive medical treatment for wounds suffered Friday in the shell attack of the presidential palace in Sanaa, indicated a Yemeni official source, quoted by Xinhua.
A representative of the ruling party gave assurances that the president will return to the country in the coming days.
AFP announced that Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi discussed on Sunday with U.S. Ambassador to Sanaa, Gerald Feierstein, about the situation in Yemen, after Ali Abdullah Saleh’s departure, who has been running the country for over 32 years, adding that in the afternoon, he has meetings scheduled with military leaders.
Originally from the south of the country, the Yemeni vice-president is a career military professional, with no real political skills, according to some observers of the local political scene, quoted by AFP. Hadi Mansour is the vice-president since 1994, and also secretary general of the General People’s Congress (GPC), the ruling party.
Under the Constitution of the country, in the absence of the President, the country is ruled by his deputy, who also takes over the temporary leadership of the army.
Mansour Hadi was born in 1945 in the village Dhakin, Abyan province, and because of serious disagreements with the southern rule, joined the northern camp in 1986, four years before the unification of Yemen.
He was not involved in the fight for liberation from the British mandate and after the region gained independence in 1967, continued to advance in ranks of the Democratic People’s Republic of Yemen, the only Arab Marxist state.
After defeating the Southern secession movement, on 4 October 1994, Mansour Hadi was sworn in as vice president of the country.
On the ground, after a period of relative calm generated by the departure of Saleh in Yemen, the violence resumed. Hundreds of people stormed the presidential palace in Taiz, and a bomb explosion caused at least three victims, in Sanaa.