Yemen President dismisses PM, V-P over failures

Yemen’s President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi has relieved Prime Minister and vice-president Khaled Bahah of his duties due to what he called government “failures”.

Mr Bahah’s surprise dismissal Sunday comes just a week ahead of a UN-brokered ceasefire planned between Yemen’s warring parties, which is expected to pave the way for peace talks in Kuwait on April 18.

Mr Hadi appointed Mr Ahmed bin Dagher, former secretary-general of the General People’s Congress party to which the President once belonged, as Prime Minister, according to a decision published on the official sabanew.net website.

He appointed veteran General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar as vice-president, and a source said that Mr Bahah would now serve as a presidential adviser.

Mr Hadi said the decision to replace Mr Bahah was “due to the failures that have accompanied the performance of the government during the past period in the fields of economy, services, and security”.

Mr Bahah’s government has “failed to ease the suffering of our people, resolve their problems and provide their needs,” Mr Hadi said in a statement.

Iran-backed rebels have been in control of capital Sanaa since 2014, forcing the government to declare second-city Aden as temporary capital.

But Mr Hadi and many government officials, including Mr Bahah, spend most of their time in Riyadh as they struggle to secure Aden and other parts of the country where Sunni jihadists have gained ground.

Adding to the unrest, the local militiamen who fought alongside the government to retake Aden from the rebels last summer have clashed with guards protecting the presidential palace to protest unpaid wages despite Mr Hadi’s orders to merge them with the security forces.