Restoring the State Is Impossible Without the Unity of the Yemeni Republic

Yemen Monitor/Special Writings:

The political forces and intellectual elites continue to repeat the same rhetoric: the battle of Yemenis is to defeat the Houthis and restore the state. Yet this narrative is entirely inconsistent with the reality on the ground. The Presidential Leadership Council—into which all these forces were gathered under one umbrella—has failed to establish a clear mechanism to organize its work, even after four years of its formation. And when a procedural framework was finally agreed upon, it was shelved the moment one of its members, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, objected. If the council is unable to settle an internal procedural issue of this scale, how can its discourse about “restoring the state” be taken seriously?

The truth is that these forces—despite their theoretical agreement on the slogan of restoring the state and unifying ranks—have long been consumed by their own interests. Each party behaves as if it were an independent state or a self-contained mini-state, concerned only with its own interests while neglecting the needs of the population under its authority. The Southern Transitional Council (STC), which seeks to divide the country, is a clear example: it is deeply preoccupied with collecting revenues and controlling public funds, yet it fails to provide basic services such as electricity in Aden, where outages exceed 12 hours a day.

The same pattern applies to other actors. The rhetoric of “restoring the state” is meaningless in the absence of any coherent political strategy, joint military action, or even the ability to unify intelligence services under a single leadership. How can there be military action without a unified intelligence apparatus? And how can promises to restore the Republic be trusted when soldiers in different formations are paid under unequal standards—some receiving salaries in Saudi riyals while others wait six months for meager wages?

In practice, the talk of “restoring the state and the Republic” has shrunk—judging by actions on the ground—to a limited geographic area reduced to the part controlled by the Houthis. This is not the Yemeni Republic; it is only a fragment of it, and it does not represent the republican system that is supposedly a matter of national consensus. The Republic of Yemen has fixed borders defined by the constitution, and among its core principles is national unity. Therefore, anyone claiming to restore the Republic cannot simultaneously abandon unity in other parts of the country.

Conceding unity to a separatist project renders any discussion of restoring the Republic meaningless. Whoever compromises the unity of the territory forfeits all credibility when claiming to oppose the Houthi project. The Republic is an indivisible whole—politically and geographically—and any official who swore an oath to protect the constitution and safeguard the interests and principles of the people cannot abandon the unity of the country while claiming to fight for the Republic. To forfeit unity is to betray the interests of the people, and by extension, it constitutes a collapse of political and moral legitimacy for anyone in office.

This is assuming, of course, that these figures reached their positions based on merit, competence, or national credentials—whereas in reality, they were appointed through external interventions and the decisions of regional and international actors.

Yemen without unity has no meaning. Unity is not a slogan to be invoked when convenient; it is a single, indivisible whole. Anyone who implicitly agrees to carve out half the country in favor of the Transitional Council has no right to speak of restoring the Republic or defending the republican system.

The threats facing the Republic are not from the Houthis alone, but also from the Southern Transitional Council, which imposes itself as a de facto authority in the south and east, severing the limbs of the state. Any discourse that downplays the significance of the Transitional Council’s control or isolates it from the broader national collapse is misleading. The claim that these are “side battles” or that “the timing is inappropriate” is equally deceptive. It resurrects the same narrative used by the opposition in 2011, which argued that once Saleh was ousted, the problems of al-Qaeda and separatism would vanish—something that was later proven to be nothing more than an illusion.

Today, the same illusion is being recycled: the claim that everything will be solved once the state is restored from the Houthis. In reality, these actors are fragmenting Yemen into small cantons through which they preserve their own interests, with no concern for restoring the state, defending the republican system, or serving the public interest.

The truth is that those who are not republican in the south and east will not suddenly become republican in the north. No one can convince the public—after all these years—that they oppose the Houthis because they threaten the Republic while simultaneously supporting, or turning a blind eye to, a separatist project that threatens the same Republic elsewhere.

As for claims that “the main battle is toward Sana’a,” such rhetoric is only acceptable when there is action on the ground. But in the absence of any military operations for years, and with no political or field constraints preventing action, such talk becomes nothing more than a cover for paralysis and failure.

In the end, any party that claims today to be serious about the battle to restore the state need only be judged by its actions on the ground. The reality speaks for itself.