Basindwa announces formation of Yemeni unity government

Yemen's Prime Minister-designate Mohammed Basindawa Yemen's Prime Minister-designate Mohammed Basindwa said on Wednesday he had finalised his new unity government and would disclose the line-up later in the day."The government has been formed and we will announce it formally this evening," Basindwa told AFP in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
"We have agreed on all the names," he added.
Half of the new cabinet ministers will be from the opposition, while loyalists of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh will make up the other half, a condition stipulated in the Gulf brokered power-transfer deal signed by Saleh on November 23.
Yemen's opposition Common Forum spokesman Mohammed Qahtan told AFP last week that Saleh loyalists would keep the ministries of defence, foreign affairs, oil, telecommunications and civil services.
He said the opposition meanwhile would head the ministries of interior, finance, cooperation, information and human rights.
Sources, which requested anonymity, earlier told ‘Arabstoday’ that the designated Yemeni President received a list of cabinet candidates from the allied parties to form an impartial government. The parties included the National Council for the Forces of the Revolution, opposition parties in the Joint Meeting bloc (JMP) and the ruling General People’s Congress Party.
Sources believed that military actions conducted by pro-Saleh forces in Sanaa, Taez, Arhab and Nahem, northeast of Sanaa, form the biggest obstacles which could stand in the way of the formation of the anticipated government.
Saleh loyalists are back to bombing the districts of Hasbah and Soufan, north of the capital, engaging in heavy clashes in these areas as well as others that are near, with tribal militants following the leader of Hashid, Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, after several weeks of truce witnessed by these districts.
The newly formed transitional cabinet will carry-out government duties for three months, after which elections will be held and Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi will formally take over the presidency.
The Gulf Cooperation Council plan, which is backed by the United Nations, forced Saleh to hand over power to Hadi in return for immunity from prosecution for him and his family.
The GCC deal also allows Saleh to remain honorary president until Hadi's election.
 Meanwhile, pro-government forces and anti-Saleh tribesmen traded artillery fire on the streets of the capital Sanaa on Wednesday, witnesses said.
The fighting, which raged near government buildings and the compound of Sadeq Al-Ahmar, a foe of Saleh commanding significant forces, were the latest challenge to a Gulf-brokered transition plan to prevent civil war after 10 months of bloodstained protests demanding an end to Saleh’s 33-year rule.
Witnesses said government forces clashed in the capital’s Al-Hasaba district, a stronghold of Al-Ahmar, with shells falling on government buildings including the headquarters of state radio and the prime ministerial offices.
The capital saw open warfare between Saleh’s forces and those of Al-Ahmar, a leader of the powerful Hashed tribal confederation, in May after Saleh ducked out of signing the transition deal backed by the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The power transfer deal is threatened by an eruption of fighting between Saleh’s foes and allies in Taez, 200 km (120 miles) south of Sanaa, that has left at least 20 dead and led the UN to demand that government forces stop shooting protesters.
Any new government faces challenges including rising separatist sentiment in the south, once an independent socialist republic, with which Saleh’s north fought a civil war in 1994 following unification four years earlier.
The region is also the site of conflict between government forces and Islamist fighters which has displaced tens of thousands of people.