Thousands rallied in the Yemeni capital on Friday to back a single-candidate presidential election planned for later this month that has sparked protests in the south, an AFP correspondent reported.
The demonstrators, who gathered in Sanaa's Change Square – the epicentre of a year of protests against the rule of veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh – chanted slogans in support of the poll in which Vice-President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi will be the sole candidate.
"Twenty-one February is the day on which Yemen will be reborn," read a slogan printed on a large picture of Hadi brandished by demonstrators.
"We have all agreed that Hadi will rule for our country's independence," they chanted.
"Hadi, take the key, the slaughterer's rule has ended," they shouted, referring to the hundreds of people killed in clashes with security forces since nationwide protests erupted in January of last year.
The election is one of the centrepieces of a Gulf-brokered deal that Saleh signed with the parliamentary opposition last November under which he is to hand power over to Hadi after the vote in return for a promise of immunity from prosecution.
Unlike the poll, the immunity pledge remains deeply controversial with the Change Square protesters.
"Our demand will not change. We will not accept anything but a trial," they chanted.
Hadi himself hails from the formerly independent south of Yemen but the single-candidate election has proven controversial in the restive region.
On Thursday, security forces shot dead two anti-vote protesters in the southern town of Daleh, witnesses said.
Activists of the Southern Movement say the election fails to meet their aspirations for autonomy or renewed independence for the region.
Some factions of the movement have been campaigning for a boycott. Its hard-line, pro-independence wing, led by former southern leader Ali Salem Al-Baidh, has called on supporters to disrupt the poll.
The south was independent from the end of British colonial rule in 1967 until union with north in 1990.
It broke away again in 1994, sparking a brief civil war that ended with the region being overrun by northern troops.
Southerners have since complained of discrimination by the Sanaa government in the allocation of resources and there have been repeated protests in favour of self-rule for the region.
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