Former Yemen president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi dies at 80
Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, the internationally recognised president of Yemen who led a fractured Government mostly from exile for eight years as the country descended into civil war and famine before stepping down in 2022, died on Thursday at the age of 80.
State-run Yemeni TV said he died at his residence in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, but gave no other details. Rashad al-Alimi, the head of the Presidential Leadership Council - the leadership body of Yemen’s internationally recognised government - said Hadi believed in the Yemeni people’s “right to a just state, freedom and human dignity.”
“He led the battle to defend the republican system,” al-Alimi said on X. The Government announced three days of mourning, during which flags will be flown at half-staff.
Hadi became president in 2012 after the resignation of longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh during the Arab Spring uprisings. Backed by the United States and Gulf states, Hadi emerged as a compromise candidate in a one-man election meant to guide Yemen through a political transition. But his presidency soon got bogged down in unrest.
During his first years in office, Hadi tried to implement wide-reaching reforms, including the unification of the country’s various armed factions.
His opponents accused him of favoring the country’s eastern oil-rich provinces at the expense of the mountainous heartlands dominated by Houthis, the Iran-aligned movement.
Another challenge came from Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, long considered one of the global network’s most dangerous branches. The group carried out a bombing in Sanaa in 2012 that killed over 100 people.
The defining moment of Hadi’s presidency came in 2014, when Houthi fighters swept south from their northern strongholds and captured Sanaa amid growing public anger over economic hardship and political instability.
With support from forces loyal to former President Saleh, Houthi forces took control of Yemen’s presidential palace in January 2015. Hadi resigned and escaped to Aden. But he later withdrew his resignation, and a Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015 in a bid to restore Hadi’s government.
Although Hadi remained the internationally recognized president, much of the real decision-making was influenced by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the coalition’s main players.
His authority weakened further as divisions emerged in the anti-Houthi alliance.
Tensions with the UAE deepened after Hadi dismissed senior Emirati-backed figures, including Aidarous al-Zubaidi, who led the separatist Southern Transitional Council, or STC.
The STC eventually took control of Aden and parts of southern Yemen, leaving Hadi’s Government confined to exile in Riyadh and to scattered territories in the east.
While the STC stopped short of openly demanding Hadi’s removal, it refused to place its forces under his command and accused his government of accommodating Islamist factions linked to the Islah party, Yemen’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The STC was dismantled earlier this year.
Hadi spent his final years in office largely out of public view in the Saudi capital. In April 2022, shortly after a UN-brokered ceasefire was announced, he transferred power to al-Alimi, who began leading the newly formed presidential council backed by Saudi Arabia.
