On the path of human civilizational development, the authority has become a function entrusted with the tasks of serving people while being subject to scrutiny and accountability. In modern regimes, the authorities initially derive their legitimacy from the people, then in order to gain that legitimacy, mechanisms designed to obtain the votes of the people as a source of legitimacy for the authorities and regimes. Legitimacy is an inherently social and political process, where the various forces compete to convince people of their programs, their worthiness and efficiency to serve them, and whatever the percentage of votes that reached them to the seat of power, they remain governed by the determinants of the social contract, and are subject to monitoring and evaluation, and to return during specific years, with modern governance legislation, to the people to periodically verify the extent of their satisfaction with their performance or not, in order to renew their legitimacy or strip them from it, as there is no absolute authority and no eternal authority.
For a long time ago, Yemen was not isolated from this civilizational development, the leaders of the national movement in the south and in the north struggled to liberate from tyranny and to build a modern state, where the people are the source of power and legitimacy, and for achieving this, two republican systems were established, in the south and in the north as one of the fruits of the revolutions of September 26 and October 14. So that the social contract, the "constitution" of the Republic of Yemen declared in 1990, came to reinforce and detail the contents of the people's state, and to guarantee their right to peaceful transfer of power through democratic mechanisms and political pluralism. The most prominent of these contents are: equal citizenship, the rule of law, political and cultural pluralism, and freedom of expression.
Despite the negatives and notable retractation about the experience of the unity state regime and the problems that accompanied its path, and the great rifts caused by the summer war of 1994, However, the constant is the struggle of Yemeni women and men to build a state of modern institutions, by various means and peaceful democratic mechanisms, who have never been exhausted, in an effort to strengthen the role of the desired citizenship state.
On September 21, 2014, the armed group "Ansar Allah" seized the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, by armed force and opened , with this adventure, a wide door to war and destruction, and undermining the institutional structures and the creative paths accumulated by the struggle of the Yemeni women and men, and above that the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE came on March 26, 2015, in a complementary role to what the Houthi group started, which dragged the various Yemeni parties to the race of undermining, demolishing and fighting.
The gambles of the belligerents during eight years of war have made Yemen a country without a state, even with the minimum conditions of a state, in addition to their selfish and distorted perceptions.
The various parties, through their practices, individually and collectively, have lost the legitimacy of acquiring power in accordance with constitutional, legal and moral methods, unable not to mention their failure to gain legitimacy through practice by achieving the public interests of all people (to be all their actions and decisions are governed by law and target the higher interests of society).
The French constitutional jurist, Montesquieu, in his book (The Spirit of Laws), defines legitimacy and illegality as people’s voluntary acceptance of the governing authority. This acceptance is represented in delegating them to take care of their interests and protect their basic rights and freedoms, and at the forefront of those rights: preserving their security and dignity and establishing justice among them. And he adds: "If the governing authority does not carry out its legal, human and moral responsibilities, in a way that people touch in their daily lives, then that authority loses the basis of its legitimacy, and society becomes free from its obedience, regardless of the legitimacy of its access to power through proper procedures.
By scrutinizing the situation of the various parties from a procedural point of view, it is easy to reach a conclusion that all parties have lost legitimacy, despite their obvious efforts to amend the state of apparent lack of legitimacy, even on a formal level, in addition to that their failure to gain legitimacy through the achievement of the public interests of all people, protecting their rights, freedoms and preserving their dignity. Although, all parties work against the general interests of people, as they deliberately achieve their narrow collective perceptions that are radically contradictory to the public interest.
According to the above, Yemen, male and female, have become a hostage to the mandate of de facto authorities which serving in a functional roles to achieve the interests of a regional sponsors, Those whose perceptions of their interests and their agents intersect against the interests of all Yemenis. The existence of the de facto authorities in the various Yemeni regions is based on the power of arms, which feed through an umbilical cord with the parties of the regional conflict and on the ruins of the inclusive national project.
Moreover, the de facto authorities compete over the arts of taxation, corruption, perversion, tyranny, illegal enrichment, creating gabs in the public peace, and by distancing yemenis from their accumulated legacy in their right to have the state of citizenship and the rule of law that they seek, generation after generation, ignoring the suffering and torments that its reckless and irresponsible practices cause to millions of Yemeni women and men.
And with the identical performance of the various parties, and their inability to present a different model that bears a mature national project, The impact of the international and regional recognition and support, for any of them, fades away, especially in amending the reality of the state of confusion by all parties and their equality in the subjective, objective, procedural and legal loss of legitimacy and illegality. In order to test this, it is possible to infer the position of President Al-Sallal when one of the leaders of the September Revolution came to him, gladly promising him after the success of the revolution that America would recognize the Republic. While President Al-Sallal replied with his intuition and spontaneity: “The most important is that Arhab tribe recognize us .” As it is a short sentence, as it has a deep indication of an early awareness of the importance of the connection of any authority with the people, their issues, their interests, and their satisfaction, as a solid basis for its legitimacy and existence.
Despite the abyss into which the parties pushed Yemen, However, people are well aware that legitimacy is the virtue of political institutions, and the hallmark of its decisions related to the public interest, besides its commitment to the laws and principles of the social contract. Legitimacy produces fundamental transformations in social structures, including making the state and the social system more efficient, more consensual, and perhaps more justice.
Till then; All Yemeni men and women in the various regions are still yearning for the existence of a modern civil state, a people's state, a state of equal citizenship, and the rule of law, justice and democracy, - contrary to the illusions and myths of the belligerents.
