Prospects for a deal to end the political deadlock in Yemen are promising despite reports the UN-backed talks between Yemeni factions are about to be culminated with a consensual solution to the constitutional vacuum.
Observers argued that Yemeni factions will fail to reach a suitable deal to end the current political deadlock for key reasons including obvious stubbornness of key factions and the UN failure in establishing best grounds for a successful solution.
Nabil Albukiri, head of the Arab center for political studies and development, said the return of president Hadi will not be the solution because he appears to be determined to resign.
"Moreover, the solution will not be a presidential or military council because the first will legitimize the Houthi coup and the second is inevitable as Yemen's army has been weakened and dissolved," Albukiri said.
Observers said the current talks are not fair since they treat the Houthi militant group as one party and other factions as the second party. Houthis are a single group which should not exploit its expansion by force and fragile authorities to dominate at the expense of a proper political process, observers said.
Lately, countries and international organizations urged a compromise by Yemeni factions while warning the country could suffer a Libyan-style violent conflict and an economic collapse.
The UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar has been sponsoring talks in the capital city of Sanaa for days. Today, reports said among the options being tabled are the formation of a presidential council or that the transition president and government withdraw resignations and come back to office.
President Abdu Rabbu Mansour and the government last week after the Houthi coup on their legitimacy and Houthi seizures of the presidential compound and presidency protection brigades.
Meanwhile, observers said the solution, which is likely to succeed, lies in a proper reconciliation process which should ensure an applicable roadmap to which all factions should be committed.
But the UN has already failed to make the transition a success, some observers said, while pointing out that the UN is still unable to establish effective mechanisms to ensure the success of any deals or talks.
The UN has been sponsoring the transition process since 2011 and has lately sponsored more deals among factions. Bringing different factions around one table to bridge the gap between them is good but the most important mechanism to have them all respect and implement what they agree on is still missing, observers said.
Fuad Alsalahi, a political sociology professor at Sanaa University, said the UN has been focusing on reconciling violent, stubborn foes in Yemen through equal quotas and such a trend has proved to be unhelpful.
"Yemenis have been meeting under UN sponsorship since 2011 and have already signed many joint agreements. We continue to see them fighting each other and involved in crises in the country though," Alsalahi said. "The situation requires better mechanisms of talks first and then better supervision on commitment of all to deals," Alsalahi added.
"In other words, the UN is supposed to not only ensure equal quotas but also equal responsibility and obligations of all Yemenis," he continued.
Moreover, observers said Yemen continues to suffer from external meddling and one of the key problems for the transition failure is putting interest of foreigners ahead of the Yemenis' interest, in some key cases.
Najieeb Ghalab, a professor of politics at Sanaa University, said the UN itself needs to know that some foreign countries are interfering in a way that undermines the UN-backed efforts in Yemen.
"Yemenis want the UN to activate its resolutions over the transition and to take other resolutions over destructive meddling. It is contradictory to sponsor transition and give support to it and, at the same time, stay watching Yemenis and others spoiling everything without proper action," Ghalab said.