On Thursday, Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi relinquished power after ten years in office as the country's consensus president under the Gulf Initiative, which was followed by the Houthi militia's coup against his authority at the end of 2014. Hadi transferred all his powers and those of his dismissed deputy, Lieutenant-General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, to a Presidential Leadership Council headed by his advisor and former Minister of Interior, Major General Dr. Rashad Al-Alimi.
According to the presidential decree, the Presidential Leadership Council, which consists of eight members, will carry out the tasks of the transitional phase and is delegated with full powers of President Hadi according to the constitution and the Gulf Initiative and its implementation mechanism. The Yemeni president also empowered the Presidential Council to negotiate with the Houthi group for a permanent ceasefire throughout the country, in accordance with a transitional phase that will end with the election of a new president.
So, who is the new President of the Presidential Council in Yemen? Major General Dr. Rashad Mohammed Al-Alimi was born in 1954 in the Al-Uloom district of the Al-Mawaset region, Taiz Governorate. He received his early education in his village under the tutelage of his father, Judge Mohammed bin Ali Al-Alimi, and then continued his secondary education, graduating from the Gamal Abdel Nasser School in Sana'a in 1969.
Al-Alimi was injured in a bombing at the Al-Nahdain Mosque in the Presidential Palace during Friday prayers, which targeted the late Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and state leaders on June 3, 2011. He was subsequently transferred to Saudi Arabia for treatment and returned to Sana'a on June 13, 2012, after a year of treatment in Saudi Arabia and Germany, before leaving Sana'a again after the Houthi coup.
Positions he has held include: working at the Police Academy in Sana'a from 1975 to 1978, then moving to the Criminal Investigation Department until 1981; being a professor at Sana'a University in 1989; Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Interior in 1989; Director of the Immigration and Passports Authority in 1994; Director of Security for Taiz Governorate in 1996; Minister of Interior in 2001; Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior in 2006; Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Affairs in May 2008; and Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Affairs and Minister of Local Administration in November 2008. He has also served as the Chairman of the Supreme Security Committee since 2006, a member of the General Committee of the People's Congress Party, a member of the Yemeni National Dialogue Conference, and an advisor to the President of the Republic in 2014.
