Yemen’s exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has delegated his responsibilities to a new presidential council, signalling a major political shift as efforts to resolve the country’s years-long conflict gained pace with a tenuous two-month truce.
“I irreversibly delegate my full powers to this presidential leadership council,” Hadi said in a televised statement early on Thursday, the final day of peace talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, which has led a military coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognised government against the Houthi rebels.
Hadi went on to say that the council will be in charge of negotiating a “permanent truce” with the Houthi rebels.
He also removed Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a senior military figure, from office and transferred his responsibilities to the presidential council. The Houthis detest Al-Ahmar for previous military campaigns in their northern heartland, and southerners resent him for spearheading the country’s north-south civil war in 1994.
Following the declaration, Saudi Arabia claimed it was putting together a $3 billion package to help Yemen’s war-torn economy, with $2 billion coming from Riyadh and $1 billion from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is also a member of the coalition.
According to official media, the kingdom has called for an international summit on Yemen.
“The fact that we are turning the page on the past and that all of these parties are coming together, as well as Saudi help and investment… the stars are aligning a little on Yemen,” said William Lawrence, a political science professor at American University in Washington, DC.
“Let’s hope they bear fruit,” says the narrator.
Rashad al-Alimi, an adviser to Hadi and former interior minister in the government of late President Ali Abdullah Saleh, chairs the new presidential council.
Al-Alimi has strong relations to Saudi Arabia and other political parties in Yemen, including the prominent Islah party, which is the Yemeni branch of the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood.
There are seven more members of the council, all of whom have political and military clout in Yemen. Aydarous al-Zubaidi, the president of the secessionist Southern Transitional Council – an umbrella organisation of well armed and well-funded militias backed by the UAE since 2015 — is one of them.
Sheikh Sultan al-Aradah, the influential governor of Marib province, which is extremely rich in energy, was also named to the council. Tariq Saleh, a militia leader and late president’s nephew with extensive ties to the UAE, was also there.
