Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:39:34 +0100
Yemen's 'Steady' Political Transition?
Yemen, courtesy of abassign /flickr
With broad external support behind it, is Yemen's reform-minded government
inching the country towards greater unity and security? Not according to
Casey Coombs. In his view, the country continues to be buffeted by
self-interested sheikhs, tribes and political elites.
By Casey L. Coombs for ISN
27 March 2014
Although Yemen took inspiration from the Arab Spring uprisings, the course
of its subsequent political transition stands apart from those experienced
by Tunisia and Egypt. Among its Arab world counterparts, Yemen is the only
state to end its unrest with a negotiated settlement and transition
agreement facilitated under the auspices of the international community.
"In contrast to what's happening in Syria," according to U.N.
Secretary-General Special Advisor on Yemen, Jamal Benomar, "where the latest
big headline is that they agreed to be in the same room for the first time,
here in Yemen the transition has moved forward."
Broad-based international support, including the pouring billions of dollars
of humanitarian and development aid into the country, has given interim
President Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi the legitimacy and capacity to carry out a
bevy of reforms and confidence-building measures as outlined in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) political accord that negotiated the terms of
longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh resignation in autumn 2011. But all is
not as it seems in one of the Middle East's poorest and volatile countries.
Successes?
Despite a series of highly-publicized successes, most notably the conclusion
of 10 months of National Dialogue talks that produced the contours of a new
social contract with the state, the transition process has, if anything,
been far from flawless. Indeed, President Hadi's
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25835721> remarks at the
closing ceremony of the national dialogue summed up the ongoing tensions
since he took office in February 2012:
"I did not take over a nation. I took over a capital where gunshots are
continuous day and night, where roadblocks fill the streets. I took over an
empty bank that has no wages and a divided security apparatus and army," he
told a roomful of delegates representing Yemen's diverse political theater
and civil society.
"The National Dialogue [outcome] document is the beginning of the road to
build a new Yemen," he added, highlighting the transition's simultaneous
potential for success and failure.
Benomar similarly cast the milestone as a qualified success during a
<https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=101605280002086&story_fbid=260589
487436997> closed-door briefing before the 15-member Security Council. "In a
nutshell, Yemenis have developed the blueprint for a new system of
democratic governance, setting the country on an upward and irreversible
trajectory," he said, before reiterating concerns that "elements of the
former regime continue to manoeuver to obstruct, frustrate and undermine the
course of change, aiming to set back and bring down the
transition...constitut[ing] a genuine threat that could plunge the country
into chaos if the threat is not removed soon."
On that basis, the Council acted preemptively to address those challenges
that it determined to be "a threat to international peace and security in
the region," by unanimously adopting resolution 2041 in late February. This
established a sanctions regime and panel of experts tasked with identifying
spoilers and handing down appropriate punitive measures.
As with other aspects of Yemen's political transition, the jury remains out
on whether this initiative will make a meaningful and long-lasting
contribution to the country's political stability. In general, many
observers are positive about the country's situation relative to its Arab
Spring counterparts. Compared to the crises in Egypt, Libya and Syria, for
example, the relatively orderly restructuring of Yemen's corrupt, oppressive
centralized government does not look so bad. Indeed, international
stakeholders have tended to focus more on these macro-level, "big picture"
considerations, arguing that the situation could have been much worse had
outside actors not intervened.
Critics see things differently. Fernando Carvajal, an expert on Yemeni
politics at the University of Exeter worries about the consequences of
downplaying the interests of the Hiraki secessionists. "It seems no one is
worried about credibility. The issue seems to be simply, 'let's meet the
milestones and claim success,'" he said. "Ceremonies are just distracting
the media from reality across the country," he added. "Low coverage simply
focuses at the top, on the president, the embassies and Benomar; not events
at the periphery."
Examples of this include a bloody battle between hardline separatists and
state forces in the southern Hiraki stronghold of Al Dhale since December.
The violence has forced humanitarian groups based there to temporarily cease
operations and has prevented a U.N. Human Rights team from investigating
allegations of the disproportionate use of force by the military. Further
east in Hadramawt Province, an alliance of local tribes have virtually
expelled state troops from strategic towns and roads in oil-rich areas of
the province, after Yemeni soldiers accidentally shot dead a prominent
tribal leader who was initially labelled as a member of Al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
"Yemen as you see it today is not ruled by democracy," according to Khaled
Al Ghomery, a mid-level civil servant in Sanaa. "It's still ruled by
sheikhs, by tribes and elites fighting for their own interests, not the
interests of the state of the people," he told ISN.
Indeed, the unified Republic of Yemen is experiencing some of its worst
episodes of violence since the 1994 civil war that almost rolled back a
unity pact between the former North and South Yemeni polities four years
earlier.
"I think if Abd Rabu [President Hadi] continues in the current direction and
manages to balance competing powers - like northern the sheikhs, Al Houthi,
and Hirak - things will cool down. But if he favors any one party, it will
be very bad," Ghomery said.
Slow Going
Hadi has certainly approached the removal of elements of the former regime
with painstaking caution in order to avoid upsetting a delicate balance of
power centered on ex-President Saleh and Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar. This is
especially important bearing in mind the former Major General defected from
Saleh's regime at the onset of 2011 protests and took half of the army with
him.
"Balance is the key," urges a local political analyst. "If that balance is
maintained and not upset on any side then we will be fine. If it is upset in
any way, then we could have problems." Indeed, the analyst also attributes
the relative absence of retaliation during the restructuring process to the
international community. "We've been fortunate that we have a coalition of
forces, both domestic and international, that are in support of the
transition. I think that the strength of that coalition is clearly more than
any of these individual actors can handle on their own."
Yet, despite the constant oversight of reputedly independent foreign
brokers, Ghomery suspects that back
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outsized role in the democracy project. His suspicions are widely shared
among the population at large. According to Ali Al Bokhaiti, National
Dialogue delegate and spokesman for the Houthi movement's political arm,
Ansar Allah, "that's why southerners [Hirak] have been so skeptical
throughout the transition process; because all they have ever seen from
Sanaa are slogans and advertisements. They haven't seen any promises
translated into reality."
Realistic Assessment
Accordingly, assessments of Yemen's Arab Spring-inspired political
transition have tended to focus on its relative stability compared to other
transitions in the region while overlooking the nuances of the domestic
context. Key personalities have been stripped from the towering heights of
Yemeni political, military and commercial institutions. A federal,
power-sharing structure of governance has replaced an exclusive centralized
system and new anti-corruption bodies have been created to hold institutions
and actors to account. While all of these initiatives share lofty aims, they
are still in the early stages of implementation. So, like all of the Arab
Spring political transitions unfolding since 2011, Yemen's remains in the
preliminary phases of tackling systemic problems that will likely take
generations to remedy.
As Harvard researchers Lant Pritchett and Frauke de Weijer observe in their
2010 paper on fragile states undergoing transitions much like Yemen's, "it
is much easier to create an organization that looks like a police force-with
all the de jure forms, organizational charts, ranks, uniforms, buildings,
weapons-than it is to create an organization with the de facto function of
enforcing the law."
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