Alwaght- Yemen is an important West Asian state which over the past three decades, specifically from the unification of the south and north in 1994, has had a history of many ups and downs in its developments. Meanwhile, the popular revolution of 2011 and the 2014 protests movement which witnessed rise of a powerful new player in the nation's politics marked a turning point in the country’s contemporary history and the calculus of power and security system in the Arabian Peninsula.
Domestically, power relations between the actors and major political rivals in have undergone fundamental changes compared to the years before the revolution, including the relationship between the Ansarullah Movement as the main power player in Sana'a in the new era and General People's Congress (GPC) as an undisputed long-time power holder from the unification to the February 2011 revolution.
GPC and gaps caused by collapse from power
Before 2011, the GPC party had under its control the government exclusively with a majority of seats in parliament. But following the popular protests in 2011, the resignation of some officials from the cabinet and parliament was the first step towards the decline of the party. A Persian Gulf states initiative then stripped the party of its status as the ruling party and reduced it to an opposition-led cabinet partner.
When now-ousted and fugitive Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi took office in February 2012, the GPC practically became a party with two presidents: Ali Abdullah Saleh was the party's leader and still led the main network of his loyalists, but Mansour Hadi as the new Yemeni president wanted to take over the presidency of the party— a competition that practically led to a rift in the structure of the party.
However, the issue of control over the party's budget further strained relations between Hadi and Saleh. Hadi confiscated the party's funds from the Central Bank of Yemen after taking office. He later ordered the closure of Saleh's Al-Yaman Al-Yaum television channel, temporarily closed down the Al-Saleh Mosque, which Saleh had built as a major project, and stopped attending party meetings.
The rivalry intensified in late 2014, when Saleh was boycotted by the United Nations at Hadi's request and hence was stripped of his party posts. Mansour Hadi also fired Abdul Karim al-Ariani, one of the party's old guard, as his second deputy. Party officials in the south and Aden condemned Saleh's actions as the competition heated up and called on Hadi to take over the party leadership.
The split in the GPC deepened with the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen in March 2015, and the main figures in the party shifted positions. Abdul Aziz bin Habtour, a member of since 1995, shifted from Hadi to Saleh support to later become prime minister of Sana'a-based National Salvation Government (NSG), divided equally between Ansarullah and GPC in 2016.
On the other hand, others like Ahmed bin Dagher, a former prime minister, separated their ways from Saleh and sided with Hadi and became his vice president in 2015 and prime minister of the government in exile in 2016. As a result of this competition, the GPC broke into two parts: First, the nationalist part composed of loyalists to Saleh and second the General Ali Afash-led part of Hadi supporters.
The division went so deep that each side did not approve of the opposite side as part of the GPC. Hadi loyalists held a meeting in Riyadh in October 2015 to fire Saleh from the party membership. The Sana'a-based branch of the party, on the other hand, in April 2016 dismissed the party's senior officials for their support to the Saudi aggression.
With the assassination of Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2017, his son Ahmed who was UAE-backed tried to take advantage of differences between Abu Dhabi and the ousted government of Mansour Hadi and, with the support of the UAE, took over the leadership of the GPC.
In August last year informed sources told some media outlets that the GPC held a meeting in the UAE to topple Hadi and his Vice President Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar.
In the meantime, many, especially those who had responsibilities in the military and government, disengaged from the party and practically declared their allegiance to Ansarullah because they either beloved that the party would not have a major role in the future of Yemen politics or opposed the treason and support for the Arab coalition's aggression by some party leaders. Therefore, it can be said that since 2017, the party broke into three parts: Sana'a part, Hadi part, and UAE-backed part led by Ahamd Ali Saleh, the son of Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Ansarullah and GPC after Saleh death
Since a coalition of Ansarullah and GPC formed NSG, Saudi Arabia went to great lengths to unite the exiled branch of GPC around the anti-Ansarullah figures of the party to destroy the coalition and undermine Ansarullah position. This effort is not new; in 2014, Riyadh made failed attempts to mediate between Hadi and Saleh.
In 2018, the Saudis tried to unite the disperses ranks of GPC party leadership around Mansour Hadi through a meeting in Cairo. Wider talks followed in Jeddah in 2019. Although it was announced after the meetings that members had agreed on Hadi's re-election, the dispute soon escalated between Riyadh-affiliated officials and those backed by Abu Dhabi.
Although Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar announced that he would reactivate his membership in the party, he, Hadi, and other prominent Riyadh-affiliated officials, including Rashad al-Alimi, speaker of parliament Sultan al-Barkani, and bin Daghar failed to convince many members based outside the county to participate in a 2019 parliament session held in support of Hadi.
The Saudis simultaneously at the time conspired with then friend and now enemy Saleh to break the GPC alliance with Ansarullah. In 2017, Saleh warned he would leave the NSG. In August that year when he asked his fellow party members to convene to mark the 35th anniversary of the party in Sana'a's Al-Sabeen Square, tensions broke out. He was killed in clashes in December that year and Ansarullah-GPC alliance lived on.
Seeing the miserable fate of the Saudi Arabia and UAE puppets from the GPC and for the good of the country's independence and sovereignty, now the remaining of party leaders in Sana'a choose closeness to Ansarullah as the best way to save position in power and in the Yemeni society.
A statement published on Monday in support of Ansarullah is a sign of this approach. In the statement, they strongly condemned intensification of the Arab aggression coalition, targeting the civilians like what happened in Sa'ada, Sana'a, and Hudaidah, and destruction of the infrastructures. They continued that these attacks would not yield any results, especially as Yemenis proved their resistance to aggression plots is a success after seven years of war. The party also condemned the blacklisting of Ansarullah by the US government or any other party and called for all Yemenis to unite until victory or peace is achieved.
