Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi

Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi was a field marshal in Yemen's military who spent eighteen years as vice president under Ali Abdullah Saleh before the 2011 uprising cracked the old order open. When Saleh was wounded in a palace attack and left for medical treatment, Hadi stepped in as acting president, then won a two-year transitional mandate in February 2012 as the sole consensus candidate - boycotted by Houthis in the north and secessionists in the south. His term stretched past its expiration. In January 2015, mass protests over fuel subsidies and frustration with stalled reforms gave the Houthis the opening to seize the presidential palace, force his resignation, and place him under house arrest. A month later he escaped to Aden, recanted his resignation, and fled to Saudi Arabia as a coalition intervened to restore his government. He returned briefly when Aden was recaptured, but by late 2017 he was reportedly back in Riyadh under house arrest. In 2022, Saudi and Yemeni officials said he was pressured to step down and transfer power to a leadership council tasked with ending the war.