By ROD NORDLANDFEB. 6, 2015
SANA, Yemen — The Houthi rebels in Yemen, who
effectively forced the country’s president and cabinet to resign last month, announced
on Friday that they intend to dissolve Parliament and take control of the
country, which does not now have a functioning government.
Houthi officials said the plan would be put into
effect quickly, but they conceded that the process might take weeks to complete.
They said they would name a national council to replace the Parliament, which
would in turn choose a committee to select a new president.
“The revolutionary movement has
always been quick — it won’t take that long,” said Ali al-Imad, a member of the
Houthi political bureau. “It’s not important when, so much as that we now have
a political road map.”
The apparent power grab by the Houthis threatens to
further destabilize a country whose previous government had been a significant
American ally in the fight against Al Qaeda, which has a major presence in the
impoverished country. It may also worsen Yemen’s
relationship with its wealthy northern neighbor, Saudi
Arabia, which already has cut off badly needed aid to Yemen because of the growing power of the
Houthis, who are believed to be financed by Iran.
Yemen has
been without formal leadership since Jan. 22, when President Abdu Rabbu Mansour
Hadi and his entire cabinet abruptly resigned. The Houthis had surrounded the
presidential palace and effectively put Mr. Hadi under house arrest. An
agreement the two sides reached to ease the crisis and overhaul the government
swiftly fell apart, leading to the resignations.
The Houthis mainly belong to a Shiite Muslim sect, the
Zaydis, who make up nearly one-third of the country’s population and are
dominant in the north. The Houthis are anti-American, but they are even more
opposed to Al Qaeda, whose regional affiliate is powerful in the Sunni tribal
areas of Yemen,
particularly in the oil-rich east and south.
The plans for a new government, decreed unilaterally
by the Houthis in the name of their “revolutionary committees,” were announced
at a meeting of many of their leaders and officials at a government building, the
Republican Palace.
The announcement came after the apparent collapse on
Thursday of talks among the Houthis and Yemen’s many political parties that
were aimed at forming a government to replace Mr. Hadi and his cabinet. Houthi
militiamen closed off a wide area of the city around the palace on Friday, including
Tahrir Square,
the focus of many antigovernment demonstrations in the past.
“People have expectations, and
we’re trying to fulfill those expectations,” said Leyla Lutf, a top official of
the Arab Spring party, which is aligned with the Houthi-led revolutionary
committees. She, too, was unsure how long the new process would take, but she
said, “When you know the target, you know how to reach it.”
Houthi leaders portrayed the plan for a new government
as the product of a consensus among Yemen’s political factions. When it
was announced, a spokesman, Jamal Asodi, said the new government would be
“based on the Constitution,” but he added, “so long as it does not conflict
with the revolution.”
Abdul Karim al Khiwani, a prominent dissident
journalist and Houthi supporter, said that “all walks of life” were represented
in the revolutionary committees and that only “one or two” of Yemen’s parties
opposed the new plan.
One of those opposed is Islah, an important Sunni
Islamist party whose reluctance to agree on a presidential committee with other
parties was one of the reason the talks failed Thursday.
The unilateral declaration by the Houthis was also likely
to be unpopular in southern Yemen, where separatist sentiment is strong, and in
tribal areas where the Yemeni government and the Houthis have tried to win
Sunni loyalties away from extremist groups like Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula. Northern and southern Yemen were separate, often
antagonistic, countries from 1968 to 1990.
Criticism of the Houthis’ action came quickly on
Friday. “This is a clear coup against democracy and constitutional legitimacy,”
said Majid Alshadadi, 35, an education ministry official from Ibb Province.
He accused former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has allied himself with the
Houthis, of being behind the move. “This is the beginning of the end of the
Houthis,” he said.
The plan calls for the Houthis’ revolutionary committees
to select a 551-member national council. The council will take the place of the
national Parliament, which continued to meet despite questions about its
legality even before Mr. Hadi resigned. The new national council is to choose a
five-member presidential commission, which in turn would choose a new president,
according to the statement that Mr. Asodi read at the palace.
“Change will come quickly,” Mr. Khiwani
said, adding that the revolutionary committees began meeting immediately after
the announcement on Friday, and that senior security officials were present. Even
so, he said, it may take weeks to establish the new government and name a
president.
Yemen faces
a serious economic crisis and is running out of money. Just how much longer it
can continue paying public-sector workers is an open question, and a worrisome
one because the government is the largest employer in the capital.
“To some extent, things are kind of
on pause right now, and running on autopilot,” said April Longley Alley, the
senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group. “The Houthis have a
pretty solid control over the security situation in Sana. It’s been quiet for a couple weeks. But
that can’t go on forever without a political compromise.
“The Houthis know that, and other
groups do, too,” she continued. “They’re going to start butting up against some
hard fiscal realities.”
The Houthis’ television station, al-Maseera TV, broadcast
an announcement Friday evening calling on members of the revolutionary
committees to celebrate the new plan by setting off fireworks, which soon lit
up the skies over the capital.
--------------
Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting.
==========
Photo Comment:
Houthi fighters patrol Sana,
the capital of Yemen,
which does not have a functioning government and has been without a president
since Jan. 22. Tyler
Hicks/The New York Times
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق