In Pictures

In Pictures: Yemen Votes

Amid calls for a boycott, presidential elections opened in Yemen on Tuesday with a sole candidate.

Polling stations across Yemen have opened in a presidential poll marking the end to Ali Abdullah Saleh(***)s 33-year rule, following a year of unrest which pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

Amid calls for a boycott, presidential elections opened in Yemen on Tuesday with a sole candidate.

Vice-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi is the sole candidate and hence a guaranteed winner of the election as part of a power-transition deal brokered by Yemen’s Gulf neighbours in November.

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Ali Abdullah Saleh signed the deal as part of a GCC initiative in November, under which he ceded power to his deputy, followed by a presidential election and also, controversially, guaranteed immunity for Saleh, his family and close aides after his retreat.

Preparations for the presidential elections started early in most polling stations and was strongly supported despite a stipulation in the power-transition deal that Hadi become the next president of Yemen for an interim restructuring two-year period.

Many Yemenis are optimistic about Hadi(***)s interim two-year appointment during which the army is to be restructured and the constitution revisited ahead of a "free and fair" election in 2014.

However, the separatist southern movement and Shia rebels in the north are boycotting the vote.

Some polling stations, as in the southern port city of Aden, were targeted by blasts amid calls for a boycott of the elections.

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A southern separatist supporter holds up a banner reading "No to the elections" during a demonstration to reject Yemen(***)s upcoming presidential elections in the southern port city of Aden.