Saleh Set to Speak: Is a Power Transfer Imminent in Yemen?
In 2011, Yemen's long-ruling president repeatedly promised to hand over power, then backed away. The deal he finally signed led not to stability but to war.
Throughout 2011, Yemenis waited for Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave. The president, who had ruled North Yemen and then unified Yemen since 1978, faced months of mass protests. The country split as military units, tribes and political parties turned against him. Again and again, announcements that Saleh would speak raised expectations that he would finally transfer power. Each time he found a way to delay.
The GCC deal
In November 2011, after being badly wounded in a bomb attack on his palace mosque in June, Saleh signed a transition agreement brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council. He handed power to his deputy, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Hadi was confirmed in a single-candidate election in February 2012. A national dialogue was launched to draft a new political settlement.
From transition to war
The transition unravelled. Saleh remained in Yemen and kept influence over parts of the army. In 2014 the Houthi movement, with Saleh's backing, seized the capital, Sanaa. In March 2015 a Saudi-led coalition intervened, beginning a war that caused one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Saleh later broke with the Houthis and was killed by them in December 2017.
The lesson
Yemen's 2011 transition is often cited as a warning. An elite pact that removed the ruler but left his networks intact, excluded key actors and failed to address economic collapse produced not a peaceful transfer of power but a longer and more destructive conflict.