Four years after transferring his powers to a presidential leadership council, former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi passed away at the age of 81, bringing to the fore the evaluation of his period in power in the country, which is described as one of the most complex and dangerous stages in the country’s modern history.
In the wake of a sharp military and political division, Hadi, who had been vice president since 1994, ascended to the presidency of Yemen in elections that took place in February 2012, for which he was the only and consensual candidate under the Gulf initiative signed by the political parties.
The choice fell on Hadi to be a replacement for President Ali Abdullah Saleh, after the February 2011 revolution demanded his departure after more than three decades in power.
A thorny path and quarreling parties
The path set by the initiative’s executive mechanism was not strewn with roses, as the path was thorny for Hadi and full of challenges, in light of quarreling parties. The tensions, disagreements, and accusations between them prevented the situation from being resolved during what was called the transitional phase, which limited Hadi’s term to two years but lasted a decade.
The most difficult challenge facing Hadi was what was known as the structure of the armed and security forces, which were divided between the control of former President Saleh on the one hand, and military leaders supportive of the February Revolution and the opposition on the other hand. Hadi issued several decisions with the aim of unifying the security and military establishment, but many saw that they did not end the fuse of division and did not succeed in restricting the loyalty of all units to the state, which kept the tension ongoing.
On the political side, the Hadi period witnessed the National Dialogue Conference between the majority of political parties, which was launched in March 2013 under the auspices of the United Nations, and concluded its work with a regional and international presence after negotiations that lasted 10 months, which resulted in all participants signing a document stipulating the formation of a federal state.
Observers believe that this document constituted a source of nuisance to the forces controlling the Yemeni arena during recent decades, and saw it as an attempt to pull the rug from under it with the transition from centralized governance to a multi-regional federal state.
Wars on more than one front
Developments accelerated in the country, as Al-Qaeda became active during that period, launching attacks and assassinations in several governorates, while the Houthis and their armed expansion emerged in some northern governorates, which placed President Hadi in the middle of a storm of successive events.
Perhaps the most prominent event was the Houthis taking control of the capital, Sana’a, in September 2014, and besieging Hadi’s house in January 2015, which prompted him to submit his resignation. However, in an operation whose details are not known to this day, he managed to flee Sana’a, arrive in Aden in February 2015, and announce his retraction of the resignation.
With the expansion of Houthi control and their expansion towards the southern governorates, especially Aden, it was announced on March 26, 2015, that Hadi had arrived in Saudi Arabia at his request, and on the same day, Operation Decisive Storm was launched, led by Saudi Arabia, to support the Yemeni government against the Houthis.
Although the government forces, with the support of the coalition, were able to regain control over Aden and the southern governorates in the same year, Hadi spent most of his time in exile in the Kingdom, as the city of Aden, which he declared as the temporary capital of the country, did not calm down, and security chaos remained present, in addition to a political and military conflict that broke out with the Southern Transitional Council, which calls for the separation of the south from the north.
During those years, Hadi carried out fleeting visits to Aden, Hadhramaut, Ma’rib, and others, but he would soon return to his residence in a situation that some attribute to the fragility of the security situation, while others believe that it weakened the position of the Yemeni authority and its presence at home.
In a surprising event, on April 7, 2022, Hadi announced the full transfer of his powers – in a decision that he said was irreversible – to the Presidential Leadership Council consisting of a president and 7 members, but Hadi, who had disappeared from sight since that announcement, returned to the media with the news of his death.
In the presence of the leaders of the Yemeni state, Hadi’s body was held today, Friday, in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where he died and was buried in the Al-Oud cemetery.
Gulf, Arab and Western countries and Yemeni components blamed Hadi for the death, but the Houthis have not yet officially issued any position on the figure they see as an adversary who summoned the Arab coalition to confront them, which prevented them from completing their control over the entire country.
Controversy over Hadi’s performance
The death of Hadi, the second president of Yemen after unification in 1990, opened a debate among Yemenis about responsibility for the situation in the country exhausted by a war that has not yet ended, while there is a division between areas controlled by the government and others subject to the Ansar Allah group, the Houthis, which the Yemeni government accuses Iran of supporting, in addition to extremely difficult economic and humanitarian conditions.
In light of the darkness prevailing over the scene in Yemen, Hadi’s departure brought back the memory of Yemenis to the events and events that struck the country over the past decade.
The ten years of Hadi’s presidency were full of major transformations that threw the country into a spiral of wars and unrest that burdened Yemenis throughout the country’s geography.
A team believes that Hadi could have avoided many of the wars and multiple crises that Yemen has reached, based on the fact that he became president and enjoyed unprecedented popular, regional and international support.
On the other hand, others respond that the man jumped into the middle of turbulent events, devoid of real support from the army and a political component to rely on, as the head of his party, the Popular Congress, Ali Abdullah Saleh, allied with the Houthis before he was later killed by them after announcing the dissolution of his partnership with them. In addition, part of the political elite complied or remained silent in the face of the destruction of state institutions out of revenge against forces opposing them.
Others believe that the effective parties agreed to appoint him as a president based on the belief that he was the most suitable to achieve their goals.
In addition, they believe that the Hadi period was burdened by armed and political conflicts, whether in Sanaa or Aden, and also witnessed external interventions that contributed to the complexity of the scene even more, and continues to this day, more than 4 years after the Presidential Council assumed leadership of the country.
He faced two coups
Academic and political analyst Professor Abdul Wahab Al-Awj says – to Al Jazeera Net – that Hadi came in a very difficult period in the history of Yemen, in the midst of political division, a major military rift, and a trend towards a bloody civil war.
He pointed out that after all the political forces agreed to be a consensual president, the man insisted on being elected by the people, describing the Houthis’ control of Sanaa as a major catastrophe, noting that “Hadi refused to sign 200 decisions at the request of the Houthis and also rejected their coup.”
He stated that Hadi’s request for support from the Arab coalition saved Yemen, which he said had not happened, it would have turned into “an imamate state and a mullahs’ regime that follows Iran,” acknowledging that the stage was accompanied by mistakes as a result of the division in the military establishment, loyalties, and foreign interference.
The political analyst believes that the defining point in the history of the late president is that he established a road map through the National Dialogue Conference and its outcomes that were unanimously agreed upon by all Yemenis, and brought together all political parties, including the Houthis.
He points out that Hadi underwent a coup in Sanaa, in reference to the Houthis’ control of Sanaa, and a coup in Aden, in reference to the Transitional Council forces’ control of the city in 2019.
He stressed that the late president stood firm in the face of “separatist and dynastic projects” and preserved the state’s sovereignty, its legal position, and the legitimacy of the elected state, which he handed over to a presidential leadership council.
Multipole scene
For his part, the Yemeni writer and researcher Nabil Al-Bukairi believes – in a statement to Al Jazeera Net – that Hadi’s period as president was not a period of rule as much as it was a period of wars in which the man was part of a crumbling scene and continuous wars, and as soon as one ended, the other began.
Accordingly, he says, “We cannot evaluate the period of Hadi’s rule as a political period through which we can measure his performance, given that he was not in a stable situation, and was always in a state of war from his rise until his removal.”
He described Hadi’s rule as characterized by conflicts, unrest, battles, and instability, and that a very large part of his time as President of the Republic was outside the country in exile, during which he only returned for a few intermittent periods.
He added: “It is extremely difficult to accurately describe the period of his rule, and we may be doing him an injustice if we say that he was ruling,” pointing out that Hadi was part of a multipolar scene, but he represented the head of legitimacy.
The attribution of inside and outside was lost
Al-Bukairi believes that Hadi neglected historical opportunities that could have led him to become a real transformation maker, but he was betrayed by his simple and weak political estimates and imagination, which did not realize the magnitude of the complexities of the scene in Yemen.
He considered that Hadi dealt with the scene as if he were still Vice President of the Republic and not President of the Republic, indicating that he derived his legitimacy “by leaning on the outside more than relying on the revolutionary legitimacy that was granted to him following the February 11 revolution.”
He stated that the outside did not support him as the inside supported him, until he lost both: the support of the inside, which remained supportive of Hadi until the last moment, and the outside did not believe him until the end.
Errors and shortcomings
In addition, Nashwan Al-Othmani, editor-in-chief of the Yemen Future platform, told Al Jazeera Net that Hadi spent 18 years in the position of vice president before the historical moment put him at the helm of power in exceptional circumstances characterized by sharp divisions, complex challenges, and the dominance of well-established traditional centers of influence in northern Yemen.
He explained that Hadi received broad regional and international support, but the internal reality was more complex than it appeared, pointing out that his personality, capabilities, and political choices were marred by mistakes and shortcomings, and he was unable to perform the role of the national aggregator to the extent required by the stage.
He added that Hadi took decisions at some points that he described as important, especially when he refused to submit to the pressures and ambitions of regional powers at a time when the Yemeni state was suffering from extreme fragility and facing intense competition for influence.
Unfair ruling
Al-Othmani stressed that Hadi’s political experience remains subject to criticism and evaluation, like his personal performance, but the political environment surrounding him was extremely difficult and continues to cast a shadow on the Yemeni scene to this day.
He said, “After 1994, the country inherited a ruling system that can be described as a wide network of influence, and Hadi was part of it for a long time, before he entered into a clash with it when he became the first man in the state.”
He believed that ending Hadi’s term and changing the state’s leadership was a necessary step at that stage, but holding him fully responsible for the course of events in isolation from the complexities of the Yemeni reality remains an unfair ruling.
He considered that Hadi does not bear responsibility for the fall of Sanaa, holding the Houthi group and the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh primarily responsible for what happened in 2014.
