ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The southern Transitional Council in Yemen's port city of Aden declared on Sunday a state of emergency and vowed to topple the internationally-backed government based in the city due to "rampant corruption."
During a meeting attended by several military leaders, the president of the Southern Transitional Council Major General Aidarous Zubaidi vowed to overthrow the government and threatened to prevent holding sessions of Yemen's parliament in Aden or elsewhere in southern Yemen.
The statement of the STC accused the Saudi-backed government of "starving southern people with its rampant corruption and waging a misinformation campaign against the southern leaders using the state funds."
The STC statement also gave Yemen's President Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi an ultimatum of one week to replace the Aden-based government commanded by Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr.
The STC declared that "the Southern Resistance Forces will be "the basis for re-establishing former South Yemen's security and military institutions."
Several commanders from the Yemeni Security Forces established by the United Arab Emirates attended the meeting and declared their support for the moves to overthrow Hadi's government in Aden.
A source of the STC told Xinhua by phone saying that "things have reached a boiling point in Aden and people are dying due to the negligence and corruption of this government."
"This government deprived the people from their basic rights such as water and electricity and made them live in unbearable conditions," the source added.
Earlier in the day, the Saudi-backed Yemeni government declared its first official budget after three years of ongoing fighting and internal conflict with the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who overran the capital Sanaa in 2014 and seized most of the country militarily.
The country's prime minister announced from the southern port city of Aden that spending in the 2018 budget is projected at 1.5 trillion Yemeni riyals (3.9 billion U.S. dollars), with revenues estimated at 978 billion riyals (2.6 billion dollars).
The PM declared in press conference that "this is an austerity budget due to the recent complex situation. Salaries for the military and civil sector in 12 provinces controlled by the legitimate government will be paid monthly."
Last week, Yemen's PM pleaded with the Saudi-led coalition to save the economy from imminent collapse, as the Yemeni riyal continued to rapidly depreciate against foreign currencies.
After a day of the public plea of Yemen's PM, Saudi Arabia's King Salman ordered a deposit of 2 billion dollars to be paid into Yemen's central bank to support the economy and shore up the weak Yemeni currency Rial.
Yemen's government, allied with the Saudi-led Arab military coalition, has for about three years been battling Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels over control of the country.
The coalition began a military air campaign in March 2015 to roll back Houthi gains and reinstate exiled President Hadi and his government to the power.
The coalition also imposed air and sea blockade to prevent weapons from reaching Houthis, who had invaded the capital Sanaa militarily and seized most of the northern Yemeni provinces.
UN statistics show more than 10,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the coalition intervened in the Yemeni civil war that also displaced around 3 million.
The Arab country is also suffering from the world's largest cholera epidemic since April, with about 5,000 cases reported everyday.
