For once, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has had a good week.

Over 2,000 troops from the United Arab Emirates, backed by Leclerc main battle tanks, artillery, and BMP-3 armored personnel carriers, are spearheading a counter-offensive to clear the Houthis out of the major southern port city of Yemen. Joined by Saudi special operations forces and local Yemeni fighters, mostly from the separatist Southern Movement, the offensive has succeeded in retaking the major airbase at Al-Anad. Soon after, Southern Movement forces retook the Labouza military base in Lahj, just to the north of Al-Anad. Anti-Houthi forces in southern Yemen are reported to be moving to completely secure Aden while also pushing on the Red Sea province of Taiz.

In the north, Saudi-trained Yemeni fighters crossed into Hadramaut province accompanied by tanks and armored vehicles, and are reported to be heading across the desert to the city of Ma’rib. An important city for Yemen’s oil industry, its capture would leave the capital of Sana’a exposed to attack.

In a symbolic gesture, Prime Minister (and Vice President) Khaled Bahah made a short visit to Aden, where he received briefings on issues in the city and visited some of the wounded. Before departing on a Saudi military transport plane for Abu Dhabi, he promised to return while his spokesman claimed that any moment may see President Hadi appear as well.

Other ministers have made appearances in Aden as part of an effort on the part of the Hadi government to reassume authority in the city and get basic services working again. With shelling and fighting in Aden largely over in the city, the humanitarian situation has improved slightly. More ships with aid are being able to dock, and the airport is also finally receiving shipments bound for the city, but residents have been loudly critical of the government’s inability to fully secure the city and restore public services. Most of the work in caring for the people of Aden continues to be handled by international organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders and the World Food Programme.

President Hadi, center, at his headquarters in Saudi Arabia (Al Arabiya)

Although Bahah is seen as a more action-oriented and is personally regarded with some respect, the same cannot be said of the man he serves, President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. With a solid series of victories behind the anti-Houthi forces, Hadi has lavished praise on those manning the front lines while claiming that military operations will continue until all of Yemen is liberated.

A key point to consider is that the forces doing most of the heavy lifting in the fight against the Houthis are hardly pro-government or pro-Hadi, as they are often labeled in the international media. They are also mostly not people who care much for any of Hadi’s praise. Instead, they are to a large extent members of the Southern Movement. Also known as Al-Hirak, the Southern Movement was once a catch-all term for southern Yemenis who had mobilized for a number of reasons, from civil rights and equality for southerners in a northern-Yemeni dominated government to separatists in favor of the re-establishment of South Yemen.

Southern separatism has gained serious momentum since the Houthis began sweeping south last year. Neglected by the Hadi government and forced to take up arms to defend their territory, southerners are increasingly agitating for independence. “There will be no stability in Yemen or the region until the South gets independence,” emphasized one southerner to VICE.

Southern Movement fighters at Al-Anad Airbase (Saleh Al-Obeidi/AFP)

“God willing, after this war, we will never ever have to stay with the North,” said another.

The future of Yemen as a unified state is more in doubt now than it has ever been. Even during the 1994 civil war, southerners were largely in favor of unification and those who tried to declare independence were very much in the minority. It looks now, though, as if sentiments have shifted. A major sign of their anger and their intentions was the refusal by many senior southern commanders to join a new army proposed by Hadi.

President Hadi is himself a southerner, but is held in low esteem by those in his homeland. After the civil war, Hadi was chosen by then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh to be his vice president and be the token southerner in his government.

The President has little support anywhere in the country, for that matter, not just in the south. He was easily elected in the 2012 election, being the only candidate, and bungled the war with the Houthis in 2014. Hadi narrowly escaped his house arrest before eventually ending up in exile in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries remain Hadi’s only real source of support. Largely ineffective as president before the war, tainted by his connections to Saleh by his fellow southerners, Hadi has little legitimacy as President, if any.

Even the Saudis have begun admitting that the Houthis will need to be a part of Yemen’s future, and that means a national reconciliation will need to take place. Reconciliation begins with recognition. If the Saudis, the GCC, and the world in general care much for the future of Yemen as unified country, then they will need to recognize that this means that there is no longer a place for Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.

Khaled Bahah (Reuters)

There is a replacement, though, at least in the short term: Khaled Bahah. A former ambassador to Canada and the United Nations, he was also a vocal supporter of the 2011 revolution that eventually saw Saleh resign. Bahah, as noted before, is also generally well-regarded. Simply put, he is the opposite of Hadi.

After six months, the Saudi-led coalition has some good news to report, but any further success will depend as much on what political moves are made as advances on the ground in Yemen. That means dumping Hadi and supporting Khaled Bahah.