“I relinquish my full powers to this presidential leadership,” Haddy said in a televised statement early Thursday, the last day of peace talks in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, which leads a pro-US military coalition. internationally. recognized government against the Houthi rebels. Haddy added that the council would be in charge of negotiating with the Houthi rebels “for a permanent ceasefire”. He also fired Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a powerful military figure, and handed over al-Ahmar’s powers to the presidency. Al-Ahmar resents the Houthis for previous military campaigns in their northern stronghold and those of the southerners for leading the civil war in the north-south of the country in 1994. Following the announcement, Saudi Arabia said it was arranging $ 3 billion to support Yemen’s war-torn economy – $ 2 billion would come from Riyadh and an additional $ 1 billion from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). which is also part of the coalition. The kingdom also requested an international conference on Yemen, according to state media. “The fact that we are turning the page on the past and that all these groups are coming together and helping and investing in Saudi Arabia; the stars are aligning a bit with Yemen,” said William Lawrence, a political science professor at the American University in Washington, DC. he told Al Jazeera. “Hopefully they will bear fruit.” The new presidential council is chaired by Rashad al-Alimi, Hadi’s adviser and former interior minister in the government of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Al-Alimi has close ties to Saudi Arabia and other political groups inside Yemen, including the powerful Islamist party, the transnational branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen. The council has seven other members, all of whom have political and military influence on the ground in Yemen. That includes Aydarous al-Zubaidi, head of the separatist Southern Transitional Council – an umbrella group of heavily armed and well-funded UAE-backed militias since 2015. Sheikh Sultan al-Arada, the powerful governor of the energy-rich province of Marib, was also named a member of the council. So was Tariq Saleh, the militia leader and nephew of the late president who has close ties to the UAE.
Humanitarian crisis
Yemen has been at war since late 2014, when the Houthis occupied the capital, Sanaa, and Hady, who was elected for a two-year transition period in 2012 after massive anti-government protests, fled south. The long-running conflict has created what the United Nations has described as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. The country is in the first week of a two-month UN-mediated truce. It is the first national cessation of hostilities since 2016. The Houthis, however, are not taking part in the talks in Riyadh. Al Jazeera’s Mohammed al-Atab, quoted by Sanaa, said the Houthis “did not [recognise] any move by the internationally recognized government, they say this move is “unfounded”. He added that many in the country hoped the announcement would launch “a new chapter in the history of Yemen”. Elisabeth Kendall, an analyst at Oxford University, told Al Jazeera that “change and rapprochement with the Houthis was never going to happen under the leadership of President Hadi.” “He has been in power for 10 years in total and is not a popular president,” Kendall said, adding that the leadership shown by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may have avoided publicity for Hadi’s shortcomings, increasing pressure on him to give in. authority. Crisis Group analyst Peter Salisbury wrote on Twitter that the announcement was a “big deal”. “The most consequent change in the internal operation of the anti-Houthi bloc since the start of the war. “How this will really work in practice will be τουλάχιστον complicated at least,” he said. A former army general from southern Yemen, Hady moved north in the midst of internal political unrest in 1986. He rose through the ranks to become vice president under Saleh, who united northern and southern Yemen in 1990. Hady took the helm of a state that collapsed after the 2011 Arab Spring protests that toppled Saleh, who was later killed in 2017 as he tried to change his faith. Hady was the only name on the ballot for the 2012 elections to lead Yemen to a transition to democracy grazed by Western and regional powers led by neighboring Saudi Arabia. But it faced great opportunities, including economic collapse and security challenges, in what was intended to be a two-year transition oversight term. Haddy failed to build his own power base for decades in uniform. After taking power, he launched a “National Dialogue” to draft a new constitution, but things quickly got out of hand. The army and allies of the Saleh government undermined the transition as al Qaeda fighters created a mini-state and struck Sanaa with increasingly bloody bombings. The Houthis captured Sanaa with the help of military units loyal to Saleh, forcing Khadi to share power. When the National Dialogue proposed a federal constitution, both the Houthis and the separatists in the South rejected it because they were softening their recently discovered influence. Hady suggested that his former boss, Saleh, make no effort to help him deal with a variety of conflicting politicians and fighters. “There is a planned conspiracy and alliances between former stakeholders seeking revenge,” Haddy said after Sanaa’s fall to the Houthis in 2014. The Houthis captured Hady in early 2015, but he escaped and fled to the southern port of Aden. In March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition entered the war against the Houthis and took Hady to Riyadh. The ensuing war between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition killed tens of thousands and pushed Yemen to the brink of starvation. Hady’s government has faced the same allegations of corruption and mismanagement as its authoritarian predecessor, both the Houthis and nominal allies in the coalition.
