Field Marshal Ali Abdullah Saleh (Arabic: علي عبد الله صالح‎), born March 21, 1942, is the current President of Yemen. He was President of the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) from 1978 to 1990 and became president of the newly united Republic of Yemen in 1990.

Saleh was Yemen's first directly elected president in 1999, winning 91.2% of the vote. The only other candidate, Najib Qahtan al-Shaabi, is the son of a former President of South Yemen and a member of Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) party. However, Qahtan ran as an independent.

After the 1999 elections the Parliament passed a law extending presidential terms from five to seven years, parliamentary terms from four to six years, and creating a 111-member, presidentially appointed council of advisors with legislative power. This move prompted the non-profit organization Freedom House to downgrade their rating of political freedom in Yemen from 5 to 6.