Mr. Saleh has maintained a strong following within the Yemen despite the turbulence popular Ali Abdullah Saleh has proved to be one of the most stubborn leaders of the Arab worldproject an image resembling a man of State, even affable, in the teeth of popular opposition, unlike some of his counterparts from sharp in during the spring of "Arab".While the Yemen saw the bloody repression of demonstrations in the capital Sanaa and other cities, the President sought - with decreasing success - distance themselves from violence.
Critics say that it is a cunning politician, using all means and escape to stay in power, promising output policy to wait his time in an effort to extend its fourth decade at the top.
"[He] was always held by creating confusion, crisis and sometimes fear among those who might put in him,"expert Yemen Sarah Phillips wrote an article for the newspaper The Guardian of the United Kingdom.""
Mr. Saleh led one of the most difficult countries in the region, a vulnerable poor state militancy, positioned between the oil-rich authoritarianism of Gulf States and the anarchy of Somalia and still healing from a division of the Korea-like during the cold war.
Now, approaching his 70th year, he has often compared the task of the decision to Yemen "dance on the head of snakes".
Balancing ActThe Republic of the modern Yemen is inextricably tied to Mr. Saleh, elected the first President after reunification in 1990.
Born in Sana'a and receiving little education, he worked his way through the army of the Yemen in the North, was injured during the civil war of 1970 between Republicans and royalists supported by Saudi Arabia.
Taking part in a coup four years later, he took his first national in 1978, when leadership role Parliament endorsed him as President.
12 Following years saw the painstaking work of Marxist unification, South Yemen, a process that appears briefly collapsed in 1994 when civil war broke out.
Abroad, Mr. Saleh has largely reached the delicate task of keeping the Western and Arab powers aside.
His battle for control of al-Qaeda - who have felt a comparable basis in Afghanistan - to the Yemen in the 1990s won him friends in Washington.
Otherwise, the Americans could keep of a leader who had remained close to Saddam Hussein the Iraq during the occupation of the Kuwait.
Turning pointThe spectre of civil war is something that Mr. Saleh continued to refer to justify its hold on power.
"[The opposition] they want to drag the area of civil war and we refuse to be moved to the civil war," he said in a speech on April 22, the eve of the news broke that he had agreed to leave the impending power.
"Safety, security and stability are in the interests of the Yemen and the interests of the region."
The shooting of 45 people by snipers at a rally of the opposition in Sanaa on March 18 had proved a turning point for the most part, despite its denials that its security forces took part.
Ministers and ambassadors have abandoned in protest, and the crowd in the streets grow in the weeks that followed.
With outrage now added to the anger at the corruption and poverty, he did not address for decades, "snake dance" days of Mr. Saleh appeared to be almost more.
