Ali Abdallah Saleh

Ali Abdallah Saleh (born 1942) is the current president of Yemen. He was president of North Yemen from 1978 to 1990 and became president of the new merged state of Yemen in 1990. He became Yemen's first directly elected president in 1999, winning more than 96% of the vote, but the main opposition socialist party was barred from standing a candidate. The other candidate was also a member of Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) party but was standing as an independent. The government-dominated parliament did not allow the other 28 applicants to stand.

A referendum in 2001 extended the presidential term to seven years meaning that he next faces re-election in 2006.