Saudi-backed Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi is taking a rare trip out of Saudi Arabia this weekend, landing
in the Yemeni city of Sayoun for a visit to the country he nominally
rules, and to attend the first meeting of parliament since the Saudi invasion in 2015.
For the Saudi-backed government to have both its president and its
parliament in place at once is unheard of, though the legitimacy of
either is in such serious doubt that in many ways it will be seen as a
farce.
Yemen’s parliament, after all, was elected way back in 2009, before the
Arab Spring, and their six-year term in office ran out in 2015, about
the time they were run out of the country by the Houthi movement.
Four years later, that parliament still claims legitimacy, and will be
overseen by Hadi, a president who was “elected” in a UN-mandated single
candidate vote in 2012 for a two year term in office, and who over five
years after his term ran out still purports to be the legitimate
president.
That all these terms in office long since expired has been largely
ignored internationally, because the Saudis are backing them, though in
practice the Saudi interest is mostly that neither the parliament not
the president are Shi’ites.
Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
- Ukraine's President-Elect Demands Sanctions Against Russia Over Passports - April 24th, 2019
- Kim Visits Russia to Meet Putin on Nuclear, Peace Process - April 24th, 2019
- Iran FM Calls for Prisoner Swap With US - April 24th, 2019
- Iran FM: Trump Aims for Talks, Bolton Wants Conflict - April 24th, 2019
- ISIS Battles Taliban for Control of Eastern Afghanistan Villages - April 24th, 2019
