Yemen votes today to instal vice president Hadi as new leader

The ballot was part of a Gulf-brokered deal under which embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

SANAA, Yemen // Yemenis are voting today to rubber-stamp their vice president as the new head of state tasked with steering the country out of a crisis that followed the year-old anti-government uprising.

The vote can hardly be called an election since Vice President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi is the only candidate. The balloting was part of a Gulf-brokered deal under which embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Mr Hadi cast his ballot early today at a polling centre hastily improvised near his home in the capital Sanaa, after a bomb threat forced the authorities to shut the one where he was supposed to vote.

Mr Hadi says the vote is the "only way out of the crisis that has ravaged the country".

The man set to become Yemen's president is a soft-spoken technocrat who has good relations with the West and has avoided the limelight during his 18 years of loyal service to the outgoing autocrat.

The US has backed Mr Hadi in hopes he can and will help fight the country's active Al Qaeda branch. Many Yemenis support him too, considering him the best man to replace Mr Saleh and shepherd one of the Arab world's poorest country out of the year-old anti-government uprising that has battered the nation and left hundreds dead.

One newspaper ran Mr Hadi's photo on its front page yesterday under a headline: "The President Tomorrow". Even the US president, Barack Obama, sent him a letter this week, voicing his support.

While highly respected by most Yemenis, few have any idea how Mr Hadi – who has not appeared in public and given only one televised speech in recent months – will tackle the huge problems Yemen faces. Many just want Mr Saleh to go.

"We want to finish with the stage we are going through now," said driver Mohammed Abdul-Khaliq, 25, who had pasted posters of Hadi on the doors of his taxi. "Saleh is finished."