SANA, Yemen  In another reverberation of the popular anger rocking the region, the longtime president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, announced concessions on Wednesday that included suspending his campaign for constitutional changes that would allow him to remain president for life and pledging that his son would not seek to be his successor.

“No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock,” Mr. Saleh said Wednesday during a legislative session that was boycotted by the opposition. “I present these concessions in the interests of the country. The interests of the country come before our personal interests.”

He ordered the creation of a fund to employ university graduates and to extend social security coverage, increased wages and reduced income taxes and offered to resume a political dialogue that collapsed last October over elections. In answer to opposition complaints that voter records are rife with fraud, he said he would delay the April parliamentary elections until better records could be compiled.

But it remained to be seen whether Mr. Saleh, whose current term ends in 2013, was simply trying to siphon vigor from the antigovernment protests planned for Thursday. Those demonstrations are intended to build on gatherings last week that turned into the largest protests against Mr. Saleh, who has ruled for 32 years. He promised in 2005 not to run again but changed his mind the next year.