Yemenis Cast Their Ballots for New President

A Yemeni electoral worker shows a ballot of presidential election votes on Feb. 21 with a picture of the only candidate, Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi. (Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images)

At least eight Yemen soldiers were killed during elections in southern Yemen, as voters cast their ballot to elect Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the only candidate on the ballot, to replace longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh, according to media reports.

Many separatists said that the election was not fair and called for a boycott, with a series of blasts going off at a polling station in Aden, according to the BBC. Yemeni officials told the broadcaster that gunmen killed four soldiers in Hadramawt Province.

The vote on Tuesday was the culmination of a deal that was brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council to remove Saleh, who has ruled the country for 33 years. The deal said that Hadi, who was Saleh’s deputy since 1994, would be the interim leader for a two-year period. 

“I would like to seize this opportunity to reiterate my call for Yemeni men and women to exercise their constitutional-granted right and vote for Hadi,” Saleh said in a statement obtained by the Yemen Post.

The Southern Movement separatist group called for “civil disobedience” to boycott the vote, while rebels in the north called for a similar action, according to the BBC.