Aden (South24 Center)

A knowledgeable source told South24 Center on Tuesday evening (October 7) that the legal team supporting Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council held a meeting to review decisions issued by the Council amid recent disagreements among its members. The team approved four key points related to the mechanism for issuing and implementing decisions in accordance with the April 2022 power-transfer declaration.

The source explained that during its meeting, the legal team emphasized that any unilateral decisions issued by any Council member without consensus constitutes a violation of the power-transfer declaration, and are fundamentally void. It stressed the importance of adhering to the principle of consensus-based decision-making.

The source added that the team called for a review of decisions issued by Council Chairman Rashad Al-Alimi, while also requesting that Council member and STC President Aidrous Al-Zubaidi provide copies of the decisions he issued on September 10, along with supporting documents and any authorization issued by the mandated authority.

According to the source, the legal team has neither approved nor invalidated any decisions issued by Al-Alimi or Al-Zubaidi to date, with meetings continuing to examine the legal files before issuing any final opinion.

This development comes three weeks after the Presidential Leadership Council’s meeting in Riyadh on September 18, which mandated the legal team to review all decisions issued by Council members since its formation.

This followed an escalation of the crisis after decisions issued by Aidrous Al-Zubaidi on September 10, which included the appointment of 14 Southern officials to governmental and local positions.

This move – considered the most significant since the Council’s establishment in April 2022 – came in response to what the Southern Transitional Council described as "the unilateral decision-making by Presidential Council Chairman Rashad Al-Alimi."

These developments prompted urgent regional mediation efforts led by Saudi Arabia to contain the crisis.

Internal debate intensified after statements on September 17 from Council members Abdulrahman Al-Mahrami and Faraj Al-Bahsani, who criticized unilateral decisions and called for clear bylaws defining members’ authorities and decision-making mechanisms.

Both Al-Mahrami and Al-Bahsani are vice presidents of the Southern Transitional Council led by Aidrous Al-Zubaidi, and all three are members of the eight-member Presidential Council, which includes a chairman and members with vice-chairman rank.

Other parties within the Presidential Council, including the Political Bureau of the National Resistance led by Tariq Saleh, renewed their demands to halt unilateral practices. The Political Bureau recalled its earlier statement in June, which had previously triggered a crisis with Presidential Council Chairman Rashad Al-Alimi.

In a recent South24 Center report, political observers and analysts noted that the Presidential Council faces one of its deepest structural crises since its establishment, characterized by the absence of clear institutional mechanisms for decision-making and growing disagreements among its components.

Analysts indicated that continuing the policy of postponing crisis resolution could render the Council vulnerable to disintegration or administrative paralysis.

The legal team is expected to continue its meetings in an attempt to resolve the decisions crisis. Despite its official mandate, the legal team will likely refrain from directly canceling or legitimizing decisions and may instead submit recommendations and legal assessments of the situation.