Oman’s New Sultan Faces Blessing and Curse - Bloomberg:
In the summer of 2018, arguing that death was the surest agent of change in the Middle East, I included Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said in the list of four leaders whose passing would shake up the region. The three others were King Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Iraq.
Noting Oman’s unusual succession mechanism — Qaboos would nominate an heir in a sealed letter, to be opened upon his death, but only if his extended family couldn’t arrive at a consensus among themselves — I predicted that “a process so peculiar can hardly be expected to proceed smoothly.”
I was dead wrong. After Qaboos’s passing last week, the succession proceeded smoothly and swiftly. The family decided not even to try for a consensus: Instead, the envelope was unsealed, and the late sultan’s choice, his cousin Haitham bin Tariq, enthroned.
Whether this decision represents a shirking of responsibility by the family or a voluntary renunciation of privilege, the reasoning behind it is simple. The grandees, aware that Oman faces a perfect storm of economic and geopolitical upheavals, felt they could ill afford a potentially divisive debate
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