"IF ANYONE understands the frustration of being a crown prince, it is Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. For two decades he played second fiddle to his own father. But on a sweltering summer day in 1995 he informed Qatar’s unsuspecting emir, then on holiday in Switzerland, that his royal ruling services would no longer be required.
Sympathy with the impatience of youth may be one reason for Hamad’s announcement on June 25th that he was handing power to his 33-year-old son, Tamim. The move was unusual. Changes of power during two centuries of al-Thani rule have tended to be non-consensual, and few Arab monarchs anywhere have ever willingly abdicated (see chart). The new emir is barely half the age of his youngest fellow-sovereign in the Gulf Co-operation Council, the six-member club of oil-rich Arab states."
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