Ali Abdullah Saleh was a Yemeni military officer and politician who served as the first president of the Republic of Yemen from the Yemeni unification in 1990 until his resignation in 2012, following the Yemeni revolution. Previously, he had served as the fifth and last President of the Yemen Arab Republic, from July 1978 to 22 May 1990, after the assassination of President Ahmad al-Ghashmi. al-Ghashmi had earlier appointed Saleh as military governor in Taiz.