Yemen's former president party elects new leader to succeed slain Saleh

SANAA, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The party of Yemeni slain former President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Sunday named a new leader to succeed Saleh who was killed last month by his onetime ally Shiite Houthi rebels, the party said in a statement.

The General People's Congress party (GPC) elected 65-year-old Sadiq Abu Ras as the new chief of the party.

The election took place at a first class hotel in downtown Sanaa, the rebel-held capital, where the GPC leadership met and named Abu Ras amid a tight security presence outside the hotel.

"The position of the party remains steadfast against the aggressors (Saudi-led military coalition) on the soil of the Yemeni people," read the party's statement.

The party welcomed any political settlement that preserves unity, security, stability and sovereignty of Yemen.

The statement did not mention Saleh's death, but demanded the release of Saleh's family members, party's leaders and journalists of Saleh-owned television channel Yemen al-Yawm from Houthi-run prisons.

The party praised the army and popular forces (Houthi fighters) in defending the country against the "aggressors."

However, senior leaders of the party rejected the party's statement and the election.

"Any party's statement that does not publicly break relations with Houthi murderers and declare war against them does not represent us and is not our party," the GPC Secretary-General Yasir al-Awadhi said in his Twitter page.

Al-Awadhi has successfully escaped from Sanaa, though Houthi media reported its fighters killed him along with Saleh during street clashes last month.

On Dec. 4, 2017, Houthi fighters killed Saleh, many of his family members and several of his party's leaders after a week of deadly clashes that erupted after Saleh switched sides of allies and declared "opening new page with the Saudi-led coalition."

Saleh, who ruled the country for 33 years and stepped down following 2011 popular protests, had waged six wars against Houthi movement that ended in 2010.

However, Saleh allied with Houthis and supported them when they advanced from their far north stronghold of Saada province and stormed the capital Sanaa in September 2014, where they overthrew Saudi-backed government and forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.

In March 2015, the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen to restore Hadi to power and roll back the Iranian-aligned Houthi-Saleh rebels.

Three years now into Yemen's civil war, over 10,000 Yemenis, mostly children, were killed, and 3 million others were displaced, creating one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Enditem