Where is the flaw in Yemeni legitimacy?

The Yemeni legitimacy represents the comprehensive national project - which is the opposite of the Houthi coup project - and is the icon of the internationally recognized Yemeni state, and the actual ruler of the liberated areas. It is responsible for managing the country's affairs and organizing the lives of its citizens, and is the sole bearer of the national republican project and the safe haven for the people. In order for it to survive, the Yemenis have offered tens of thousands of martyrs to be a reference for their sacrifices and to understand its responsibilities towards them and to preserve the structure of the state that organizes their lives and stability.

This general concept is the basic foundation that is not disputed, and its translation is supposed to be distributed to the political reality in the Yemeni scene of legitimacy as a ruling authority that has a government and manages state institutions with efficiency and competence.

When the Presidential Leadership Council was formed in April 2022, this formation included creating a national consensus among all political and military components in all liberated areas, followed by a change in the form of the government to include representatives of all political forces to contribute to managing the state with consensus and effective participation and to bear responsibility in the institutions and departments managed by each party, and to act in accordance with the comprehensive policy presented by the Leadership Council and the government.

More than two years have passed since this political formula for Yemeni legitimacy, and every day the complexities increase, the failures swell, the conflict widens, corruption spreads, and legitimacy drowns in an ocean of stumbling blocks and inability to carry out its duties towards the individual and society. Perhaps the most prominent challenge it faces is the collapse of the currency and the inability to pay salaries and the reflection of that on the living conditions that have reached a point that is difficult to bear or continue in its shadow.

The most important question in this context is: What brought us to this level of failure, and how do all the participating forces comment on this setback?

In fact, political consensus is only formal, while there is a dichotomy between remaining in it and being unique in undermining this consensus on reality and violating its overall framework in terms of managing institutions, obstructing their work, and rebelling against the government’s authority and executive decisions, as each political party or component appears to be an independent mini-government that controls the institutions, administrations, and government departments under its control, whether administratively or revenue-wise, without any consideration for government decisions or state regulations that oblige everyone to follow its policy and comply with its sovereignty. Therefore, corruption appears to be the master of the situation and evading responsibility is the reaction that occurs at the moment of failure and blaming the other party or waving slogans of division, regionalism, or partisanship to silence the complainant and curb his questions.

In the past few days, many facts have emerged revealing the chaos of transferring revenues to the Central Bank in Aden, and each entity, institution or governorate keeping its revenues either in private banks or the treasury of its local authority. This indicates financial tampering, administrative corruption and a complete weakening of the performance of the government, which is covering up such obstacles and contenting itself with silence as long as it is involved in maintaining the disintegration of state institutions from within without expressing any objection or seeking to change the features of this overwhelming failure.

The deplorable state of the Yemeni government is not linked to the separation of the currency or the cessation of oil exports, but rather there is a hierarchy of reasons and causes that have generally worked to reach this state, the most prominent of which are corruption, marginalization of oversight and accountability bodies, the weakness of the government’s image, the fragility of its authority in institutions, and the absence of patriotism.

The government has not adopted a comprehensive reform plan to combat the collapse of the economy and the depletion of its resources by taking urgent procedural steps such as reducing its expenditures on the huge number of officials lying in bed, according to the director of the National Bank of Yemen, who said: “A quarter of the state budget goes to salaries for these people,” or working to reduce its diplomatic representation in embassies and consulates in various countries of the world, a representation that costs the state an exorbitant budget and it can dispense with 50% of it due to the difficult economic conditions it is going through, and reducing the operating budgets of each institution and reducing the appropriations and expenses allocated to each official, and rationalizing foreign travel and attendance at international conferences, summits and seminars in terms of expenses or individuals for the Leadership Council or for members of the government, as their consequences are exhausting for the state that suffers from a frightening economic deficit. The government has not sought to form committees to monitor and combat corruption, or care about concluding all development and service project deals that it implements at its own expense with absolute transparency and public tenders to choose what is appropriate for its capabilities, instead of concluding deals under the table and opening the door wide to waste billions on fictitious projects. And suspicious deals.

Saudi and Emirati deposits will not remain the permanent savior to rescue the government from the abyss of collapse and failure, as the government always pins its hopes on such urgent measures without seizing the opportunity to exploit any deposit in its crises, and plug the holes of imbalance in its economic policies. However, the truth is that every deposit melts like a clove of salt without making a difference in supporting the currency or stopping its collapse as long as the government is unable to control the corruption moguls and hard currency traders who suck it up at the first moment of its arrival, and then the collapse resumes again.