Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan
Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (b. September 7, 1948, Ain, Trucial States [now United Arab Emirates] – d. May 13, 2022, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) was the second president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, serving from November 2004 until his death in May 2022.
Khalifa was the eldest son of Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first president of the United Arab Emirates. As crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Khalifa carried out some aspects of the presidency in a de facto capacity from the late 1990s when his father experienced health problems. He succeeded his father as the ruler of Abu Dhabi on November 2, 2004, and the Federal Supreme Council elected him as president of the UAE the following day. As ruler of Abu Dhabi, he attracted cultural and academic centers to Abu Dhabi, helping establish the Louvre Abu Dhabi, New York University Abu Dhabi and Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi. He also established Etihad Airways.
During Khalifa's presidency, the United Arab Emirates became a regional economic powerhouse and its non-oil economy grew. Khalifa was viewed as a pro-Western modernizer whose low-key approach helped steer the country through a tense era in regional politics and forged closer ties with the United States and Israel. As president during the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Khalifa directed the payment of billions of dollars in emergency bailout funds into Dubai. On January 4, 2010, the world's tallest man-made structure, originally known as Burj Dubai, was renamed the Burj Khalifa in his honor.
In January 2014, Khalifa had a stroke. After the stroke, Khalifa assumed a lower profile in state affairs but retained ceremonial presidential powers. His half-brother, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan carried out public affairs of the state and the day-to-day decision-making of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. In 2018, Forbes magazine named Khalifa in its list of the world's most powerful people. Following his death in 2022, Khalifa was succeeded by his brother Mohamed.
Khalifa was born on September 7, 1948, at Qasr Al-Muwaiji, Al Ain, in Abu Dhabi (then part of the Trucial States), the eldest son of Hassa bint Mohammed Al Nahyan and Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. He was a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
When his father, Zayed, became Emir of Abu Dhabi in 1966, Khalifa was appointed the Ruler's Representative in the Eastern Region of Abu Dhabi and Head of the Courts Department in Al Ain. Zayed was the Ruler's Representative in the Eastern Region before he became the Emir of Abu Dhabi. A few months later the position was handed to Tahnoun bin Mohammed Al Nahyan.
On February 1, 1969, Khalifa was nominated the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and on the next day he was appointed Head of the Abu Dhabi Department of Defence. In that post, he oversaw the build up of the Abu Dhabi Defense Force, which after 1971 became the core of the UAE Armed Forces.
Following the establishment of the UAE in 1971, Khalifa assumed several positions in Abu Dhabi as head of the Abu Dhabi Cabinet. After the reconstruction of the Cabinet of the United Arab Emirates, the Abu Dhabi Cabinet was replaced by the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, and Khalifa became the 2nd Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (December 23, 1973) and the Chairman of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi (20 January 20, 1974).
In May 1976, he became deputy commander of the UAE Armed Forces, under the President. He also became the head of the Supreme Petroleum Council in the late 1980s. The post granted him wide powers in energy matters. He was also the chairman of the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency.
Khalifa succeeded to the post of Emir of Abu Dhabi and was elected President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on November 3, 2004, replacing his father Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who had died the day before. Khalifa had been acting president since his father became ill prior to his death.
On December 1, 2005, the President announced that half of the members of the Federal National Council (FNC), an assembly that advises the president, would be indirectly elected. Half of the council's members were still appointed by the leaders of the emirates.
In 2009, Khalifa was re-elected as President for a second five-year term.
In March 2011, Khalifa sent the United Arab Emirates Air Force to support the military intervention in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi, alongside forces from NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), Qatar, Sweden and Jordan.
Khalifa pledged the full support of the UAE to Bahrain in the face of pro-democracy uprising in 2011.
Later in 2011, Khalifa was ranked as the world's fourth-wealthiest monarch, with a fortune estimated to be worth $15 billion. In 2013, he commissioned Azzam, the longest motor yacht ever built at 590 ft (180 m) long, with a cost between $400–600 million.
During Khalifa's presidency in February 2022, the UAE signed partnership agreements with Israel on tourism and healthcare.
Khalifa was the eldest son of Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and Hassa bint Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan. Khalifa was married to Shamsa bint Suhail Al Mazrouei, and had eight children: Sultan, Mohammed, Shamma, Salama, Osha, Sheikha, Lateefa and Mouza.
Khalifa died on May 13, 2022, at the age of 73. He was buried at Al Bateen Cemetery in Abu Dhabi. The Ministry of Presidential Affairs announced a 40-day national mourning with flags at half-mast along with a three-day suspension of work in private firms and the official entities at the federal and local levels of institution. State mourning was also announced in many other Arab League nations. Bahrain, Lebanon, Oman, Mauritania, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco, and the Maldives declared official mourning with flags at half-mast for three days. In Jordan, mourning was declared for 40 days while flags flew half-mast in Kuwait. Saudi Arabia declared three days of mourning with all recreational, sporting events and festivities postponed. Pakistan announced a three-day mourning and flags were raised at half-mast. Brazil declared three days of mourning. Algeria declared two days of mourning with flags to be flown at half-mast. Palestine declared a day of mourning and ordered flags to be flown at half-mast. India also declared a period of national mourning with flags at half-staff for one day starting from May 14, 2022. Bangladesh declared one day of state mourning. Cuba declared one day of mourning on May 17, 2022.
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Sheikh Khalifa, U.A.E. Ruler, Is Dead at 73
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan oversaw vast economic growth and built his country’s partnership with the United States in his 18 years as head of state.
4 MIN READ
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who marshaled the oil wealth of the United Arab Emirates to develop the Persian Gulf nation into an economic powerhouse and close partner of the United States during his 18 years as head of state, died on Friday. He was 73.
His death was reported by the state-run Emirates News Agency. No cause was given. Sheikh Khalifa had a stroke in 2014 and subsequently stepped back from many of his public duties. The government announced that government offices and private businesses would close for three days beginning Friday, and that a 40-day mourning period would be observed across the country.
Sheikh Khalifa became the ruler of the U.A.E., a federation of seven semiautonomous city-states along the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, after the death of his father in 2004. His tenure was marked by swift economic development, dented only by a debt crisis in the glitzy metropolis of Dubai in the late 2000s that he helped end by pouring in billions of dollars from the wealthier emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Dubai thanked him by naming the world’s tallest building after him, changing its name from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa.
ADVERTISEMENT
His reign was also punctuated by turmoil around the Middle East. During the uprisings known as the Arab Spring, which spread across the region in 2011, his government intervened behind the scenes to support strongmen and undermine political Islamists. His military worked closely with the United States in Afghanistan, joined the coalition against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and partnered with Saudi Arabia in its military intervention against the Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2015.
It was during his tenure that the Emirates and neighboring Bahrain established formal diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020, the first Arab states to normalize relations with the Jewish state in nearly three decades.
- Did you know you can share 10 gift articles a month, even with nonsubscribers?
In the Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa was a towering, if remote, figure, who rarely appeared in public but whose image was seemingly everywhere: on the walls in government offices, behind reception desks at hotels. In addition to serving as the emir of Abu Dhabi, he was the country’s president and the head of its armed forces, investment fund and petroleum council, which oversees oil policy.
After his stroke, he stepped back from the daily affairs of government, delegating power to his younger half brother, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nayhan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, who championed a more assertive foreign policy.
It was widely expected that Sheikh Mohammed would succeed Sheikh Khalifa as the Emirates’ new ruler, but no information about the formal succession process was immediately available.
ADVERTISEMENT
In a post on Twitter, Sheikh Mohammed said Emiratis were “united in grief” at the loss of a “brother and mentor.”
“We were blessed by your strength, wisdom and leadership,” he wrote.
In a statement, President Biden called Sheikh Khalifa “a true partner and friend of the United States,” and said the U.S. government would “honor his memory by continuing to strengthen the longstanding ties between the governments and people of the United States and the United Arab Emirates.”
Like other oil-rich monarchies in the Persian Gulf, the Emirates has long looked to the United States for protection from external threats as well as a place to buy expensive military equipment.
But tensions between the two countries have risen this year over the Emirates’ resistance to join Western efforts to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over his invasion of Ukraine. Also clouding relations is a sense in the Emirates that the United States is not doing enough to ensure the security of its Gulf partners, especially from Iran and its armed proxies.
Sheikh Khalifa was born in 1948 in the oasis of Al Ain in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. He was the first son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who would become the Emirates’ first post-independence ruler, and Hassa bint Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan.
At the time, Abu Dhabi was one of a collection of Arab sheikhdoms in southeastern Arabia that had signed protective treaties with the British. Sheikh Khalifa studied at the British Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
In 1966, the British installed his father as the ruler of Abu Dhabi in a bloodless coup against Sheikh Zayed’s elder brother.
ADVERTISEMENT
Sheikh Khalifa returned to Abu Dhabi from Britain to work under his father, and his role grew after the Emirates became independent in 1971 and his father became head of state. Sheikh Khalifa headed the petroleum council, which oversaw oil policy, a key post in a desert country with few resources other than hydrocarbons.
He also oversaw the armed forces and the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which grew to an estimated $700 billion, making it one of the world’s largest.
His father died in 2004, and the next day Sheikh Khalifa succeeded him as the ruler of Abu Dhabi and the president of the Emirates, positions he held until his death.
His personal wealth was said to have been formidable. In 2011, Forbes reported that he was worth $15 billion, making him one of the world’s richest monarchs. In 2018, the magazine placed him No. 43 on its list of the world’s most powerful people.
Sheikh Khalifa is survived by his wife, Shamsa bint Suhail Al Mazrouei, their eight children, and an undisclosed number of grandchildren.
No comments:
Post a Comment