Yemen has always been a country of halves,and 2012 was no different. Half dictatorship, half elections, half reform and some even claim merely a half a revolution, given that past injustices have yet to be righted. For starters, after more than three decades of dictatorship under Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemenis held their first free and fair election for a president in February, though it was more of a referendum really, given that there was only one name on the ballot. Needless to say, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi won handily. Hadi’s rise — or rather, Saleh’s undoing — had began a year earlier, when angry, frustrated youth began protesting. Saleh’s bloody attempts at repression only galvanized wider public support against him, spurring a general uprising. Life-long Saleh allies switched sides, skewing the character of the protest movement but also opening the door to foreign political intervention when Yemen appeared on
