Sole candidate gets 99.8% in Yemen vote

The sole candidate in Yemen's presidential election on Tuesday, Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, received 99.8 percent of the valid votes cast, the country's electoral commission announced on Friday. According to the final results, 6,635,192 voters from an eligible electorate of 10,243,364 cast their ballots -- a turnout of 66 percent -- the commission said. Hadi, who will take the oath before parliament on Saturday and be formally invested as president on Monday, succeeds Ali Abdullah Saleh under a transition deal brokered by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. Hadi "will take the oath of office in parliament on Saturday, February 25, and the inauguration will follow on Monday, February 27, in a ceremony at the presidential palace during which Ali Abdullah Saleh will officially hand over power to him," a statement from the commission said. The handover will put the seal on a hard-won November transfer of power deal, under which Saleh agreed to step down in return for a controversial promise of immunity from prosecution over the deaths of hundreds of people during 10 months of protests against his 33-year rule. Saleh has been receiving treatment in the United States for blast wounds he suffered in a bombing at the presidential palace last June but is to fly home for the handover, Deputy Information Minister Abdo Janadi said on Wednesday.