Al-Hijri MP: We faced obstacles to convening the House of Representatives, and we hope that the Leadership Council will fulfill its promise

The head of the Islah parliamentary bloc, MP Abdul Razzaq Al-Hijri, revealed that there were obstacles preventing the convening of the House of Representatives during the past years, which was suspended since the Houthi militias took control of the capital, Sana’a, and only limited sessions were held in Aden and Seiyun.

In an interview that coincided with the party’s celebration of its founding anniversary, published by Al-Sahwa Net, Al-Hijri said, “The presidency and members of the House of Representatives made great efforts to prepare the conditions for holding its sessions and exercising its legislative and oversight role, but unfortunately we faced several obstacles.”

He added, "The House of Representatives is the granter of legitimacy to the Leadership Council and the government, and it is the source of legitimacy as a representative of the people. The truth is that the executive authority is the only body concerned with providing the conditions and capabilities to hold and secure sessions."

"We hope that the Presidential Leadership Council will fulfill its promises in this regard, so that the Council can carry out its constitutional and legal duty," he said.

The parliamentarian Al-Hijri criticized the performance of the Yemeni legitimacy, and said, "The leadership of the legitimacy with its various institutions was unable to present an attractive model to rally around due to its weakness and the absence of a compass governing the steps on the path to ending the Houthi rebellion and restoring the state."

He pointed out that the economic situation in the country "requires a courageous stance by the Leadership Council and the government to search for stable economic resources and combat financial and administrative corruption that has been expanding for the past years, and to implement economic reforms that help in austerity in spending."

At the beginning of this month, the Speaker of the House of Representatives arrived in Aden and then visited Taiz. According to sources who spoke to the “From the Other Side” program broadcast on “Yemeni Youth,” “the aim of the visit is to activate the House of Representatives, and he asked the government to provide a headquarters for the House, and also to activate the committees for monitoring and supervision.”

The last time there was talk about the return of the House of Representatives to convene officially in Aden was last March, when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sultan Al-Barkani, and his deputy, Engineer Mohsen Basra, returned, and on their agenda was participation in the meetings of the state’s supreme leadership bodies and reviewing the ongoing preparations for the convening of the House of Representatives, according to what the official Saba Agency reported.

On April 18, 2022, the House of Representatives held its first session in the interim capital, Aden, and said in a statement after the return of the representatives and the Speaker of the House to Aden, "The House will hold its first session of the second session to discuss various issues," but it only continued for a number of sessions.

The Council has previously held only two sessions since the outbreak of the war following the Houthi militia's control of Sana'a on September 21, 2014. The first was in mid-April 2019, and the second was in late July 2021, and they were held in the city of Seiyun in Hadhramaut Governorate.