Tribalism, family feuds and division within the army are likely to topple Saleh but peace and youth must fill the political vacuum
For a long time occupying Yemen's presidential hot seat led to exile and assassination. Two of Yemen's previous presidents were assassinated within a nine-month span and none of Saleh's predecessors lasted more than seven years in power. But Saleh managed to stay in the chair for so long that almost 75% of Yemen's population was born after he came to power in 1978.
The secret behind his long survival is a cocktail of the politics of patronage, tribalisation of state institutions, the construction of a family regime, support from Saudi Arabia, and the creation of crises. For Saleh, every crisis is a precious source of borrowed time.
The current crisis with the al-Ahmar family – who run Yemen's most powerful tribal confederation, the Hashids – seems to be the final one. This is because it is not a fight between an entrenched president and an influential tribal family. It was the family's endorsement that brought Saleh to power, and kept him there. Now he finds himself facing the very structure of power that he introduced.
The current risky division within the Yemeni army is linked to tribal and family-based feuds and competition between the elites, and not to political orientations or defending the interests of the state and the military, as was the case in Egypt and Tunisia.
What complicates the situation in Yemen is that the feelings of tribal and regional allegiances among most of the enlisted Yemeni soldiers are stronger than their military allegiance.
Like other autocratic Arab leaders, Saleh presented himself to the world as the only available alternative to chaos and transnational terrorism. His departure would lead to a complex overlapping of all the threads of the domestic political game.
Already, militants have taken control of a number of Yemeni cities and towns, and thousands of internally displaced people have left their homes.
In the aftermath of the Saleh era, the Houthi Zaydi Shiite rebels in the north may demand an autonomous zone. Many southerners, on the other hand, may call for disengagement with Sana'a.
While it is difficult to speculate about the potential fallout were Saleh to exit the political arena, it is easier to estimate the instruments of power wielded by each force in Yemen's political arena. There are hundreds of armed-to-the-teeth tribes, institutionally faceless military, hundreds of militant jihadists, scores of ineffective opposition political parties, a couple of rival powerful elite factions, a divided southern movement and an emerging large, peaceful youth movement.
In the case of Tunisia and Egypt, the crumbling of dictatorships did not bring anarchy or transnational terrorism. Instead, the militaries and state bureaucracies are currently controlling and managing the transition period.
In post-Saleh Yemen, Washington will be fixated on al-Qaida, Riyadh on keeping its hands inside the Yemeni political kitchen, and the Arab world will be minding its own revolutions.
The sons of al-Ahmar on the other hand will not be interested in sitting on the presidential chair. Influential tribal leaders in Yemen prefer the appointment of a ruler who allows them to extract maximum political concessions and economic benefits without being directly involved in the complex management of government affairs.
While the process of shaping Yemen's political future should be an internal affair, Europe should take the lead in establishing an inclusive and representative Yemeni political community. Post-Saleh Yemen should, above all, incorporate a generation of peaceful young people who have been filling the streets of Yemeni cities for months. They are the best antidote to terrorism.
Dr Khaled Fattah is guest lecturer at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at the Lund University in Sweden