Nashwa Moneir‏27 أكتوبر‏، الساعة ‏0

Nashwa Moneir
‏27 أكتوبر‏، الساعة ‏05:03 مساءً‏
In Yemen, 'no one is in charge'
Peter Salisbury
Last updated: 8 October 2014
The fate of Yemen's peace deal is hanging in the balance after Houthis snub president's choice of a prime minister.
For the past two weeks, talk in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, has been of the "situation".
People have left the city, traders in markets complain, because of the "situation"; men who would normally go unarmed carry semi-automatic rifles in the street because of the "situation"; taxi drivers try to push prices up because of the "situation". Yet nobody can fully vocalise what the "situation" is - perhaps because it is as much an expression of what is missing as it is of what is present.
On Tuesday, these tensions seemed to have been eased when Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Hadi Mansour declared his choice of a new prime minister. But instead, the move led to even greater uncertainty as the Houthis quickly snubbed the new candidate, Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, on the basis that he was not selected through a consensus decision and that he was an "agent of the US".
"The selection makes a mockery of Yemen's independence and sovereignty as well as the will of the people," the group said in a statement issued shortly after the appointment was made. They promised further 'escalation' of the kind that led to heavy fighting in the capital in September.
The Houthis rejection of Bin Mubarak - who was appointed by presidential decree - raises questions about the fate of the peace deal which ended days of fighting and was supposed to lead to a Houthi withdrawal once a new, neutral prime minister and cabinet were named.
On September 21, Hadi signed the deal with the Houthis, who had just taken control of a major military installation on the western edge of the city. As the agreement, which was aimed at getting the Houthis to leave the capital, was being signed, checkpoints manned by Houthi fighters blossomed across Sanaa.
Two days after the deal was signed, Houthi leader Abdelmalek al-Houthi said the "People's Committees" securing the city would not leave until the military, in disarray after the takeover of Sanaa, was able to fight the local al-Qaeda franchise. Since then, it has been clear who controls the capital. ‫