A few weeks ago, the period specified for the Yemeni National Dialogue Conference ended. After information about what happened at the conference was leaked — most notably, talks about adopting a federal system for the new state — President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi met with Yemen’s tribal alliance, headed by tribal sheikh Sadek al-Ahmar. Hadi sought reassurances that Yemen’s unity will not be touched following the tribes’ opposition to dividing the country into regions. But Hadi said nothing — didn't even give a speech — to the civil forces that have serious reservations about what happened at the dialogue.

The tribal sheikhs — and not the tribe members themselves — have been directing Yemeni politics more than any other social or political force. Although these sheikhs are involved in and lead many influential political parties, they also engage in political work outside the framework of these parties. They think that they have the right to do what other citizens don’t. They sometimes work outside the context of, and sometimes in opposition to, the political parties that they joined only to use as tools to perpetuate their tribal power, and not as civil political groups whose members are equal.

This attitude is also evidenced by how they deal with others. At the start of the current youth revolution and at the end of 2012, Sheikh Mohammed bin Naji al-Shaef, the head of the Rights and Freedoms committee in the Yemeni parliament, attacked the current unity government’s Prime Minister Mohammad Salem Basendwah for being “Somali,” which means he doesn’t descend from a Yemeni tribal family that would grant him a status appreciated by the tribal sheikhs.

Decades after the Yemeni revolution of September 1962, the tribes’ control over state institutions remains unchanged. The sheikhs have continued control of the legislature as a tradition. As much as 58% of the 1969 parliament’s seats were tribal sheikhs (headed by the powerful leader Abdullah al-Ahmar). That proportion never went below 50%. Ahmar headed parliament from 1993 until his death in 2007. Five of his children are still parliamentary members, representing about 2% of parliament. The parliament speaker to succeed Ahmar was Yehyia al-Rahi, also an influential tribal sheikh and a major-general in the army.