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"If you look at the elite level and particularly in Sana’a, you’re seeing a competition among traditional rivals playing out,” said Leigh Miles, the Yemen program manager for the National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C. Miles has spent six years watching Yemen’s political changes.
She observes several overlapping movements of opposition to Saleh that have risen in recent months to offer a ruling transition in Sana’a: the Joint Meetings Party, which spawned the Preparatory Committee for National Dialogue, and the political interests of the northern tribes in the leadership of Brigadier General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a relative of the president, and Sheikh Sadique al-Ahmar, the head of the Hashid confederation and Yemen’s sheikh of sheikhs.