Polls open in Yemen’s first post-Saleh poll

Yemenis began voting on Tuesday to replace President Ali Abdullah Saleh in an election
many hope will give Yemen a chance to rebuild the country shattered by a year-long struggle that had pushed Yemen to the brink of civil war.

Although Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi stands uncontested as a consensus candidate, the election is billed as an attempt to help Yemen turn a new page on a president who ruled the country with an iron fist for 33 years.

The vote would make Saleh, now in the United States for further treatment of burns suffered in a June assassination attempt, the fourth Arab autocrat to leave office in a year
after revolts in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Large queues formed early in the morning outside polling stations in the capital Sanaa amid tight security, after an explosion ripped through a voting centre in the southern port
city of Aden on the eve of the vote.

A high turnout is crucial to give Hadi the legitimacy he needs to institute changes outlined in a power transfer deal brokered by Yemen's Gulf neighbours, including drafting a new
constitution and restructuring the armed forces, in which Saleh's relatives hold key positions.