A new crisis looms within the Presidential Council amid threats from Al-Bahsani to take unilateral decisions in Hadhramaut

Yemen

Yamanat – Special

The Presidential Council is facing a new crisis similar to tensions triggered earlier by the release of unilateral decisions by Aidaroos Al-Zubaidi, Council member and chairman of the Southern Transitional Council, which sparked disagreements within the Council.

The crisis emerges this time from Hadhramaut, where a member of the Presidential Council and a member of the presidency of the Transitional Council, General Faraj Al-Bahsani, threatened to make unilateral decisions related to the governorate, accusing the President of the Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, of obstructing decisions related to the oil governorate.

Following his statements, Al-Bahsani held a series of meetings with tribal and social leaders at the Republican Palace of Mukalla, during which he appeared to seek to establish himself as “leader of Hadhramaut”, a governorate in which influence is shared by three main forces that have military formations: the Southern Transitional Council, the Tribal Alliance of Hadhramaut and the Plateau Protection Forces, in addition to two military zones in Mukalla and Sayun.

Remarkably, a source within Al-Bahsani’s office welcomed what he described as the “national positions” of a number of military leaders in favor of Major General Al-Bahsani’s efforts to “normalize the situation” in the governorate, an indication that includes Al-Bahsani’s orientation toward strengthening military influence in favor of his movements.

Al-Bahsani’s steps are seen as an attempt to impose a fait accompli in Hadhramaut, inspired by the experience of Al-Zubaidi, which the Presidential Council had previously accepted, when it adopted 14 unilateral decisions issued by the latter in the civil field.

With his previous experience as governor of Hadramawt and commander of the Second Military Region, Al-Bahsani seeks to strengthen his presence as the most powerful actor in the governorate, benefiting from the state of competition between influential forces from the coast and the valley, and from his position in the Presidential Council.

The data indicates that Al-Bahsani began to take the pulse of the tribal community and military power centers in the governorate before taking another escalatory step. Observers believe his calculations also rely on the balance of regional influences, particularly between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and it is not unlikely that he received support or inspiration from the Emirates to act, given that Abu Dhabi is the main supporter of the Transition Council.

Indicators of the escalation of the crisis within the Presidential Governing Council indicate the fragility of the political structure that governs relations between its members and the failure of consensus mechanisms to control the behavior of competing forces within a single framework. The return to the forefront of “unilateral decisions”, whether through Al-Zubaidi before or Al-Bahsani today, reflects the encroachment of local and regional influence at the expense of state institutions, and the transformation of the Presidential Council into an arena of struggle for influence rather than a platform for state administration.

Al-Bahsani’s travels in Hadhramaut indicate that the oil governorate could become the center of a new confrontation between competing projects, particularly with the decline of the role of the central authority and the inability of Council President Rashad Al-Alimi to control the pace of balances. Given the persistent differences within the Council and the multiplicity of regional ties between its members, the chances of reaching an internal settlement appear more complex, which portends a growing circle of division and a complexity of the political and military scene in the eastern and southern governorates.

In conclusion, the crisis looming today is not simply a conflict of powers, but rather the extension of a deeper conflict structure that could reshape the characteristics of influence in Hadhramaut and could once again raise the fundamental question of the Presidential Council’s ability to continue to serve as the overarching framework for managing the transition period.

Yemen