Yemen Government in Chaos as Houthis Assert Power

President, PM, and Cabinet All Resigned Thursday

Earlier today, Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi declared talks with the rebel Houthis to have reached “a dead end” and announced his immediate resignation. He was a captive of the rebels at the time, and it’s unclear if the resignation was forced.

The latest reports, however, are that Yemen’s parliament has since held an emergency meeting and rejected Hadi’s resignation, leaving his status up in the air for the time being.

The parliament is planning a second “emergency” session on Friday to try to resolve the crisis, though with the Houthis holding the capital city and a large portion of the country, it isn’t clear what parliament can actually do at this point.

The Houthis have been seeking a power-sharing deal and reforms to the draft constitution that is being worked on. There had been reports as recently as Wednesday that Hadi was going to agree to those reforms, but he followed that up with a resignation, meaning the status of the constitution, like everything else in Yemen, is simply unclear.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.