Saleh’s offer turned down; Yemeni opposition remains adamant

CAIRO, Egypt– A political deal for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to relinquish power within 30 days failed to persuade thousands of anti-government protesters across the nation Sunday to fold up their camps and go home.

“We’re not leaving,” said Hassan Luqman, a protest organizer who sat inside a tent in the capital, Sanaa, surfing the Internet while planning more rallies against Saleh’s autocratic 32-year rule. “We know our struggle won’t end anytime soon.”

A tentative agreement reached a day earlier between leading political opponents and Saleh’s ruling party called for the president to step down within 30 days in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Diplomats credited the plan as a move toward ending two months of turmoil and bloodshed, but the deal fell short of the central demand by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators that Saleh resign immediately.

But the street protesters are a potent, if leaderless, force. They are suspicious of political parties and fear that compromising their demands would weaken their movement and give Saleh a chance to regain momentum and possibly stay in power.

The opposition’s larger problem, though, is not being able to control protesters. What started two months ago as a seemingly hopeless campaign by 60 university students has turned into a movement that encompasses every major sector of society – the tiny middle class, tribal sheiks, army generals and Islamic insurgents.

“It is their right to reject it,” Abdul Wahab Anisi, a leader of the opposition Islah party, said of the protesters’ reaction to the deal. “It’s … best that the revolutionary movement remain skeptical of these political dealings. The protests have achieved these advancements at a great price, and they want all their key demands to be fully realized.”