When Yemen’s new presidential council, led by Rashad al-Alimi, left for Saudi Arabia on April 27, only a week after being sworn in, it was perhaps not surprising that questions were asked over whether the country’s leadership intended to stay in the country they were supposed to be governing.
The man they had replaced, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, had practically abandoned Yemen since Iran-allied Houthis forced him out of the country in March 2015, and along with many of his officials, based himself in Riyadh, earning the derogatory label “the hotel government”.
