Yemen president hands powers to new leadership council | Politics News

Yemen’s exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has transferred his powers to a new presidential council, in a major political shake-up that took place as efforts to end the country’s years-long war gained traction with a fragile two-month truce.

“I irreversibly delegate to this presidential leadership council my full powers,” Hadi said in a televised statement early on Thursday, the final day of peace talks held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, which has been leading a military coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognised government against the Houthi rebels.

Hadi added the council would be tasked with negotiating with the Houthi rebels “for a permanent ceasefire”.

He also sacked Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a powerful military figure, and also delegated al-Ahmar’s powers to the presidential council. Al-Ahmar is resented by the Houthis for past military campaigns in their northern stronghold and by southerners for his leading role in the country’s 1994 north-south civil war.

Following the announcement, Saudi Arabia said it was arranging $3bn to support Yemen’s war-ravaged economy – $2bn would come from Riyadh and a further $1bn from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is also part of the coalition.

The kingdom also called for 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 the Saudi aid and investment … the stars are aligning a little on Yemen,” William Lawrence, a political science professor at the American University in Washington, DC told Al Jazeera.

“Let’s hope they bear fruit.”

The new presidential council is chaired by Rashad al-Alimi, an adviser to Hadi and former interior minister with the government of late President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Al-Alimi enjoys close ties with Saudi Arabia and other political groups inside Yemen, including the powerful Islah party — the transnational Muslim Brotherhood’s branch in Yemen.

The council has seven other members, all whom have political and military influence on the ground in Yemen. That includes Aydarous al-Zubaidi, head of the secessionist Southern Transitional Council — an umbrella group of heavily armed and well-financed militias propped up by the UAE since 2015.

Sheikh Sultan al-Aradah, the powerful governor of energy-rich Marib province, was also named a member of the council. So was Tariq Saleh, a militia leader and nephew of the late president who has close ties with the UAE.

Humanitarian crisis

Yemen has been at war since late 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and Hadi, who had been elected for a two-year transitional period in 2012 after mass anti-government protests, fled south.

The long-running conflict has created what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The country is in the first week of a two-month UN-brokered truce. It is the first nationwide break in hostilities since 2016.

The Houthis, however, are not participating in the talks held in Riyadh.

Al Jazeera’s Mohamed al-Attab,…