Four Months Since their Departure: Why Hasn't the Government Returned to Aden?
Reports
Sun, 01-08-2021 06:11 PM, Aden
Aden (South24)
The South and North Yemen parity government which resulted from the Riyadh Agreement between the STC and the Yemeni government, arrived in Aden at the beginning of this year, to suddenly leave it in March after angry local protests, as a result of its failure to resolve and address crises throughout its existence, and for which it was essentially formed.
The departure of the government and its prime minister from Aden - with the exception of the STC-affiliated ministerial bloc - faltered the Riyadh agreement signed between the two parties on November 5, 2019. Maeen Abdulmalik, the prime minister, returned to Riyadh, accompanied by a number of ministers, while others headed to Cairo in Egypt, and the Southern governorate of Hadramout.
Basically, the Riyadh Agreement stipulates the return of the parity government to Aden to carry out its duties, and to resolve the successive crises in the Southern governorates and parts of the Northern governorates (areas liberated from Houthi control); From the collapse of the currency and economy to the interruption of salaries of the armed sector, the low salaries of the civil sector, and other crises that have burdened citizens.
Despite the attempts of the government party in Riyadh to place its withdrawal from Aden in the context of “the lack of security and protection”, it is clear that the reasons of the withdrawal go beyond these weak arguments, according to observers, as the government was largely secured and fortified in the “Maashiq Presidential Palace”, which raised the question of "why did they leave and not come back?"
Disrupting the Riyadh Agreement
Observers believe that the withdrawal and departure of the Yemeni government falls within the attempts to disrupt the Riyadh Agreement, impede it, and strike at the relentless Saudi efforts that culminated in the signing of this agreement. The STC confirms this, accusing "parties affected by the agreement" in the "Yemeni Government" of pressuring to withdraw members of the parity government from Aden.
“Preventing the return of the government is due to the insistence of influential parties in the government to obstruct the implementation of the agreement and work to create unjustified side problems.” Deputy Director of the STC Media Department, Mansour Saleh, told “South24”
Mansour considers that the goal is "to raise the state of tension in the Southern street and increase the suffering of its people," noting that "in the beginning, the justifications were to secure the government, so we confirmed in the STC through our negotiating delegation that with any security plan agreed upon with the Joint Operations Command, and away about linking it to the progress of the Riyadh Agreement, then other justifications were invented.”
The STC has repeatedly called on the government to return to Aden in most of its meetings, considering that its “unjustified” departure constitutes a “clear and explicit violation of the Riyadh Agreement” [1]. The STC showed a kind of "restraint" despite the enormous pressure it is under from the Southern street to step in and end what Southerners consider a "war of services and livelihood" being waged against them.
Saudi Arabia had announced an agreement to "stop all forms of escalation" between the two parties to the Riyadh Agreement, in a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that carried accusations to the STC, after internal political and military appointment decisions issued by the STC's president.
The Saudi statement stressed that "the return of the government is an absolute necessity" for Riyadh, calling on everyone to abide by it and work according to it, but nothing has changed and the government has not yet returned, and it seems - according to analysts - a "weak position" from Riyadh "which is supposed to put more pressure on the return of the government and implement the rest of the terms of the agreement.
Disagreement with Saudi Arabia
According to informed sources which told "South24", that there are "governmental requirements" for Saudi Arabia to provide a budget to return to Aden, while the Kingdom is afraid to give its money to banks "involved in corruption", especially after "the scandal of looting the Saudi deposit estimated at two billion USD by influential parties in Hadi's government", which was reported by UN reports.
Saudi concerns were clearly demonstrated by the “governance mechanism to enhance transparency” adopted by Riyadh in the recent grant of oil derivatives worth $422 million to the electricity sector in Yemen [2], which came to ensure “no manipulation and corruption in the grant,” according to experts.