SANAA, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for 33 years, dubbed the protesters who demanded his resignation as "elements of the coup", the official Saba news agency reported Wednesday. "The young people who stage protests are trying to spread unrest across the country and they are elements of the coup," Saleh was quoted by Saba as saying.
"I'm not stick to the power, power is available to anyone, but through ballot boxes," he said in a speech when addressing thousands of his tribal supporters in northwest province of Hajja on Wednesday.
"The time of coups and chaos is over," Saleh told his supporters. "Whoever wants to take the power, he must should take it through the ballot boxes, not through chaos in streets," he added.
Saleh, who has been in power for 33 years and is facing growing popular protests demanding his resignation, announced last week that he would step down after his term expires in 2013 and promised not to hand power over to his son.
Earlier Wednesday, two protesters died of wounds from gunshot during clashes between anti-government protesters and the police in the country's southern city port of Aden as several anti-regime rallies violently rattled other major provinces simultaneously, leaving up to 14 demonstrators injured.
Yemen, the impoverished Arab country, struggles to cement a fragile ceasefire deal with a Shiite rebellion in the north and to quell a growing separatist movement in the south while mounting resurgent al-Qaida regional group rampaging through the country's major cities.
Northern Shiite rebel commander Abdulmalik al-Houthi pledged late on Tuesday in a statement posted on the internet to order his armed groups to support the Yemeni people against President Saleh if the "revolution breaks out."
