ADEN, YEMEN—American politics is polarized. Some pundits even liken it to the run-up to the Civil War. The obvious solution? Donald Trump and Kamala Harris should share the Oval Office. Perhaps Marco Rubio and John Kerry can share a cubicle on the 7th Floor of the State Department. For good measure, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene might agree on nothing, but all the more reason to have them coordinate in the name of democracy.
Such a solution would be a recipe for dysfunction, if not disaster. And yet, its core logic—forcing extremes together in the name of big tent democracy—is at the core of United Nations and State Department strategy. Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council is just the latest example of well-meaning diplomats forcing an unworkable model on a fragile country.
Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council formed on April 7, 2022, upon the resignation of Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council formed on April 7, 2022, upon the resignation of Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Rashad al-Alimi, a member of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General People’s Congress, became president. Southern Transitional Council leader Aidarus al-Zubaydi; Saleh’s nephew Tarik Saleh, leader of the so-called National Resistance; and Al-Islah [Muslim Brotherhood] leader Sultan Ali al-Arada each became vice chairmen of the Council. Four other leaders from various tribes and regions rounded out the Council.
Just as Iraqis are saddled with a dysfunctional government as various political movements appoint ministers who prioritize their personal fortunes and political agendas above national policy, so, too, are Yemenis with the Presidential Leadership Council. Mohammed Al-Jaber, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, acknowledged in an interview that the Presidential Leadership Council and ministers its officials appoint, but who live in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, siphon off nearly half the budget.
As great a problem, however, is the small-mindedness and corruption of most Presidential Leadership Council members, beginning with Alimi himself. Yemeni officials plead for donations to fight the Houthis or alleviate Yemen’s poverty, but then either divert the funds to promote their own party interests or pay for their ministers’ lavish lifestyles in Cairo and Jeddah. Yemenis deride these politicians living abroad as “a government of the hotels.”
The antipathy of northern Yemenis toward the South runs deep and appears to be the filter through which they craft policy.
Alimi, like his colleagues born in North Yemen, appears more interested in preventing southern Yemen from thriving than he does in defeating the Houthis. The antipathy of northern Yemenis toward the South runs deep and appears to be the filter through which they craft policy. While South Yemen has a plethora of oil and its storage tanks are full, ministries controlled by northern Yemenis refuse to allow them to sell any. lest the South benefit from its own resources. Minister of Telecommunications Waed Badhir is often abroad and recently has sported a new Rolex. While the Minister of Communications has the ability to issue new licenses for cell phone networks, he does not so that South Yemen does not create its own infrastructure. As a result, the Houthis continue to control the cellular network infrastructure, compromising all telephone calls inside Yemen. It is an own goal made possible by small-mindedness. Islah members Abdullah al-Alimi Bawazeer and Sultan Ali al-Arada, meanwhile, provide backdoors for both Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to thrive and the Houthis to escape accountability.
A better model would be to choose a president with only two vice presidents—one from the north and one from the south. The president might be ceremonial, akin to presidents of Iraq or India, while each of the vice presidents would govern areas within North and South Yemen’s official territories and choose their own ministers and technocrats to govern their territory.
This would increase stability and security; neither northerners nor southerners want outsiders governing them. It would also reduce the tendency of ministers to treat their positions as entitlements. Governance requires living amongst the governed. Indeed, donor countries might establish a rule reducing budgets if any vice president or minister spends more than one month abroad per year.
Governance requires living amongst the governed.
The northern government might locate itself in Aden if its ministers are too frightened about security in their own region, but they should have no say about governance, taxation, or management in the south.
Yemenis have suffered far more than anyone should, and there is a ticking clock. Ali Abdullah Saleh’s cynical turn toward the Houthis after his resignation undercut security and stability a decade ago, much as Islah’s flirtation with both the Houthis and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula does now. Forcing southerners to live without electricity because politicians in Saudi Arabia or Egypt will not allow the sale of oil risks undermining the only stable part of the country.
Effective diplomacy requires calibrating strategy to reality and recognizing and recovering from failure rather than doubling down on it. If Northern Yemenis fear southern secession, the answer is not to promote the dysfunction of the Presidential Leadership Council but rather to find a federal model that works, one in which northerners cannot dominate the south, or vice versa, and in which all politicians live in the country they theoretically serve.
