Former Yemeni president maintains share in the new government

The General People’s Congress (GPC) Party headed by former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said that it would maintain the same number of portfolios in the upcoming government as agreed during the Gulf Initiative, Anadolu news agency reported on Tuesday.

The GPC website reportedly announced that the party and its alliance would hold 17 ministries out of 34, noting that this was guaranteed for them in the Gulf Initiative that removed Saleh in 2011.

The revolutionary movement started in the beginning of 2011, with Saleh stepping down in November of the same year after the Gulf States, excluding Qatar, offered a plan giving Saleh’s party the right to keep half of the ministries as well as granting Saleh immunity against prosecution.

The other half of the ministries is held by the Joint Meeting Bloc, which includes Islamic, nationalist and leftist parties.

Yemen’s current President Abd Rabbu Hadi Mansour asked Yemeni representative to the UN Khalid Bahah on Monday to form a new government based on the recent agreement called the “Peace and Partnership Deal”, which was signed by all the Yemeni parties on 21 September.

Since September, the Houthis, a Shia Yemeni group, have controlled the capital Sanaa and are still holding the essential state institutions there despite signing the recent deal.

The deal stipulates the formation of a technocratic government, assigning a state deputy president from the Houthis and reducing oil prices.