Military Restructuring and Yemen’s Stalled Transition (MES Insights v3i6 November 2012)
by Adam C. Seitz
One year ago, on November 23, 2011, President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Initiative, ending his 33-year presidency and transferring power to then-Vice President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi as the first step in Yemen’s transition. Nearly one year after Saleh signed the GCC Initiative, the preparatory committee for national dialogue announced that Yemen’s Conference for National Dialogue had been pushed back to early 2013. The Dialogue is an essential element of the Initiative aimed at unifying a deeply divided country and laying the foundation for the drafting of a new constitution. The November announcement marked the latest delay since the April 2012 date for National Dialogue was first announced, highlighting the challenges Yemen still faces moving forward with implementing the GCC Initiative. One barrier that continues to stand in the way of National Dialogue, and further implementation of the Initiative as a whole, is the restructuring of the armed forces. Although the restructuring of the Yemeni armed forces is stipulated as a part of the first phase of the GCC Initiative, ambiguity within the document has left room for Saleh’s relatives to maintain their posts in the military in post-Saleh Yemen............(Read on)..........
