Sanaa: The former governor of Yemen’s southern port city of Aden, recently sacked by the president, said he formed a new “transitional political council of the south” on Thursday, after thousands of Yemenis rallied in his support.
The ex-governor, Major General Aidarous Al Zubaidi, has fallen out with President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi but is close to the Saudi-led Arab coalition fighting the Iran-backed Al Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2015.
The new council, declared by Al Zubaidi at a speech in Aden, consists of 27 southern leaders including former Cabinet minister Hani Bin Braik, who was also dismissed by Hadi.
The group does not, however, include prominent members of the Southern Movement, Yemen’s decade-old separatist organisation, actors who have political weight and influence needed in the region.
At last week’s rally in Aden, thousands of southern separatists rallied in Al Zubaidi’s defense, issuing a statement they said authorised him to form a political entity to represent southern Yemenis. The demonstrators declared the ex-governor’s followers “legitimate representative of the people of the south” on regional and international levels.
Aden has been the seat of Hadi’s government since 2014, when the Houthis forced him out after seizing the capital, Sanaa.
