Yemen’s ongoing economic collapse is a tragedy starring a myriad of actors, none of them innocent. The situation has become even more dire in recent weeks amid delays in anticipated financial support from Saudi Arabia for the government of recently-appointed Prime Minister Salem bin Breik, and as the Houthis create an even more repressive environment for humanitarian organizations, civil society groups, and financial institutions. As successive political and economic disasters feed into each other, it’s as if the government and the Houthis are competing over who can better fail the Yemeni people.
Since the Saudi-sponsored, UN-backed truce officially ended in October 2022, hopes for a gradual return to economic normalcy, or at least steps toward recovery, have been repeatedly dashed. First, the Houthis imposed a blockade on oil and gas exports through missile and drone strikes on tankers, pipelines, and oil terminals, cutting government revenues in half. Then, after the Gaza war erupted in October 2023, the Houthis launched attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, leading to US, British, and Israeli airstrikes, increased international restrictions, and massive damage to Houthi-run ports and airports.
Riyadh has become far tighter with its cash as it seeks to impose financial discipline on the government and promote good governance, but there are insufficient funds for even basic services. Electricity provision collapses every year during the searing heat of Adeni summers. The January redesignation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) has further isolated Houthi-held northern Yemen; banks and other institutions face potential financial sanctions if they continue operating there, but also Houthi pressure to stay in Sana’a.
Yemenis are at breaking point. Demanding reforms, citizens have launched a series of protests that have embarrassed the PLC, headed by President Rashad al-Alimi, and dominant local elements of the government coalition – the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Aden and the Islah party in Taiz. Women have taken the lead in Aden, but those who participate risk being met with violence. Still, the right to protest is fast becoming the only substantive difference between life in government and Houthi-run areas.
By now, it is no secret that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are considering reform of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC). Its members have failed to work together or delineate responsibility, choosing instead to jostle for influence. In a sign of how sclerotic the Council has become, it took three years for its legal committee to complete its bylaws, even though an initial draft was prepared within a month of its inception in 2022.
The PLC jousted with Prime Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak over primacy in decision-making for an entire year before Bin Breik was installed in May. Infighting has made the PLC incapable of benefiting from international political, military, and economic pressure on the Houthis, who are perhaps at their weakest point since 2022. Yemen’s legislature, meanwhile, is moribund, with MPs last elected over 20 years ago.
The public is also aware of recent reports detailing the exorbitant salaries PLC members receive from Saudi Arabia, all while the rest of the public sector goes unpaid. To add insult to injury, these funds are sent directly to PLC members, rather than being paid through the government’s budget, as if they are foreign employees and not servants of the Yemeni state. Citizens are left to wonder whether these eight men are accountable to their purported constituents or those who pay their salaries – and those of their military forces – and guarantee their positions.
The arrangement is not an accident. International actors have manipulated the situation to this end, or, at the very least, done little to change it. Money continues to flow to a range of security, military, and intelligence agencies within the government coalition, while the Houthis have expanded their security, military, and intelligence networks. Meanwhile, conditions for civilians continue to deteriorate, as increasing food security and interruptions to basic services are met with state inaction and widespread cuts in foreign aid. Securitization has become the dominant framework for dealing with Yemen.
The dangers of this approach are clear. Saudi Arabia concluded several years ago that if it could not force the Houthis out militarily, it would need to formalize relations to neutralize their threat. The UAE has long pursued a policy of establishing its own zone of influence in southern governorates and the West Coast, outside state institutions and without concern for Yemen’s sovereignty. The Houthis, meanwhile, with Iran’s support, are set on their own path of division, commandeering economic institutions and industries in the territories they control, issuing their own currency, and entrenching their hold on state institutions.
Yemenis did not vote for any of these options. But if the PLC doesn’t get its act together as the supposed representative of the republic, the country will find itself permanently inhabiting a situation made by – and for – others.