Cleaning the Slate

A long time in the making, Yemen finalized on Wednesday evening what might just be the most important phase of its transition of power, if not the most expected. Through the publication of a series of presidential decrees, Yemeni president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi severed the former regime’s last links to power, putting to rest three decades of military nepotism.

Back in 2011, when the international community sought a device to help Yemen find a way out of its crisis, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) hatched a plan that it hoped would allow the impoverished nation a smooth transition of power, all the while preserving some level of stability in its state institutions. A key element to regional stability and security, Western powers and Gulf countries all united to save Yemen from political annihilation; they understood that while President Saleh could no longer act as the country’s legitimate leader, Yemen’s ruling system should be preserved in order to prevent Islamic extremists using instability to seize power. Thus the GCC-brokered power transfer agreement was born.

When the details of Yemen’s political transition were inked in Riyadh in November 2011, both parties—the Joint Meeting Parties and then-President Saleh—agreed that prior to the National Dialogue Conference and the drafting of a new constitution, Yemen would undergo a profound military reform, through the demotion of all the former regime’s men.

The move was aimed to not so much as to lay waste to Saleh’s vast network of influence, but to prevent him from hindering Yemen’s moves toward democracy and prevent any chance of a military coup. With many family members occupying key military positions, Saleh’s power lay in the connections he had managed to weave throughout all levels of government.

While many Yemenis expected the newly-elected President Hadi to immediately announce the dismissal of all of Saleh’s men, he chose instead to tread carefully, slowly working from the bottom up to preserve the integrity of existing institutions. As months passed, President Hadi demoted more and more prominent figures of the former regime. With the departure of General Yehia Mohammed Saleh, former chief of the Central Security Forces—and nephew to the former president—and Ali Al-Ansi, former head of the National Security Agency, Yemen breathed a sigh of relief.

But on Wednesday, when President Hadi announced the demotion of General Ahmed Ali Saleh from his position as commander of the Republican Guard, the nation’s elite military corps, revolutionaries claimed their final victory against autocracy. General Saleh’s demotion was accompanied by that of General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, formerly Yemen’s most powerful military man. The former commander of the 1st Armored Division, Ahmar, a long-standing ally of Saleh, famously tipped the odds in favor of the revolution when in March 2011 he announced his defection to the opposition as millions were rising up against the regime.

Hailed as the protector of the revolution, the general’s departure from power became one of president Saleh’s main conditions for stepping down. It was agreed that his fate would be linked to that of all the former regime’s men.

For the first time in three decades, Yemeni military power is back under the control of the defense ministry, its allegiance returned to the flag. For the first time in three decades, the military will owe its allegiance to the nation, not a tribal leader or a political faction.

Although it is still difficult to foresee the impact the new decrees will have on Yemeni political life (since the nation is still coming to terms with the magnitude of the changes), one thing is certain: Yemen’s National Dialogue has been given the level playing field it needed for all participants to feel equal. No one voice will rise above the others.

With all representatives having been freed from the burden of political allegiances and power networks, chances are better that bridges will be built, feuds will be resolved, and democracy will emerge stronger for it. Away from the clash of arms, Yemen leaders will be forced to use dialogue not threats, attitudes will change. Moreover, by fulfilling his promise to the nation, President Hadi—a man who might only be remembered as a transitional leader—gave the country a mighty gift: a blank canvass on which to start afresh.