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DOHA, Qatar — The emir of Qatar went on national television on Tuesday to publicly confirm that he was handing over power to his son in a brief speech that praised the virtues of youth and assured his subjects that his successor was ready to rule them.
DOHA, Qatar — Now that he is set to become the new emir, the absolute ruler of Qatar, what possibly can Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thaniat promise to the citizens of a tiny, incredibly rich country that seems to have everything?
The 61-year-old emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, did not specify exactly when his fourth son, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, 33, would assume the office, but a Qatari official said the new emir would make a speech to the nation on Wednesday, after which he would choose a new government.
In Qatar, the unemployment rate flirts with zero (it is 0.1 percent); infants have a per-capita income over $100,000; health, housing, low interest loans and educations are all provided. Qataris have a world-class television network in Al Jazeera, will host the World Cup in 2022, are building an airport that will eclipse the one in nearby Dubai and hope to soon be self-sufficient in food production.
The handover had been the subject of orchestrated leaks to the news organization Al Jazeera on Monday but not officially confirmed.
But they do not have democracy.
It was widely expected here that the current prime minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, would step aside in a cabinet reshuffle. He has been foreign minister since 1992 and prime minister as well since 2007.
Some people here cautiously hope that the surprise decision of the outgoing emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, 61, to hand power to his fourth son, Sheik Tamim, 33, may signal the governing family’s intention to offer Qataris a taste of expanded personal freedoms, even if democracy is not explicitly on the agenda.
“I declare that I will hand over the reins of power to Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and I am fully certain that he is up to the responsibility, deserving the confidence, capable of shouldering the responsibility and fulfilling the mission,” the emir said.
There are some hints that already have at least a few Qataris excited. (For most, a beneficent feudal monarchy appears just fine, thanks, and they demonstrated their appreciation by lining up by the thousands, on foot and in their Mercedes and other luxury cars, to visit the two emirs, incoming and outgoing, in their palace on Tuesday and pledge their allegiance.)
Sheik Tamim had been made the heir apparent by a decree of his father after a constitutional change made that possible, and his eldest son renounced his claim on the throne. He is the second son of the second of the emir’s three wives.
Najeeb Al-Nauimi, the lawyer for Qatar’s only political prisoner, Mohammad Ibn Al-Dheeb Al-Ajami, said he was hopeful. His client was jailed for life last year for writing a poem that, in a fairly tame manner, criticized “sheiks playing on their PlayStations.” Mr. Al-Dheeb was arrested under a constitutional provision that forbids criticism of the emir, however indirect.
“You, our children, are the munitions of this homeland,” the emir said. “We have always thought well of you, by virtue of your genuine eagerness and sincere achievements have proven to be ready to lead and take our confidence.” It was unclear if he was speaking to youth generally, to his son, or both.
Mr. Nauimi, who said he has known the incoming emir since the sheik was 9 years old, said Tuesday that Sheik Tamim had told him that Mr. Al-Dheeb would be released within a few days of the new emir’s accession to power. That does not speak to democracy as much as it does to the absolute power of the monarch, but all the same, Mr. Naumini hoped it would be a signal of more openness to come.
Sheik Hamad took power himself in 1995 at 43 when he staged a bloodless coup against his own father.
“There will be a lot of changes, definitely,” Mr. Nauimi said.
His speech was largely absent of political content, aside from a statement of his strongly held Pan-Arabist views. “We believe that the Arab world is one human body, one coherent structure, that draws its strength from all its constituent parts.”
The outgoing emir already promised parliamentary elections by the end of the year — a constitutional requirement that is long overdue. Mr. Nauimi is among those agitating for amendments to the Constitution that would let that Parliament appoint the prime minister, paving the way for a constitutional monarchy inching closer to the British model and away from the autocratic style of the Persian Gulf states.
He spoke vaguely about taking on a new role himself, but did not say what that would be.
It would be the first such example in any of the gulf’s monarchies, and one of the few in the Arab world.
His decision came as Qatar’s hand — more precisely its checkbook — can be felt throughout the Middle East, raising questions about whether the son will continue Qatar’s high-profile interventionist policy. In recent days, Qatar has let the Taliban open an office in Doha and has helped keep the Syrian rebels armed. And while it is allied with Washington, it has also raised the West’s ire by financing radical Islamist rebels in various arenas.
“I’m optimistic,” Mr. Nauimi said.
One of the emir’s most far-reaching actions, foreshadowing his later policies, was to sponsor Al Jazeera, the satellite news station created in the 1990s, which broke the monopoly of state broadcasters on the regional narrative and offered Arab viewers a new spotlight on their societies and leaders.
Optimistic, but not absolutely sure — in part because the governing family has consistently demonstrated that is has no tolerance to being challenged, or even criticized indirectly. In the absence of any sort of public agitation, change will come from the top down, not from the bottom up.
Sheik Tamim has little international profile and has so far concentrated almost entirely on domestic issues. At the same time, the prime minister who is to be replaced, who is widely known as H.B.J. to distinguish him from the emir, aggressively pushed Qatar onto every world stage possible, first as foreign minister beginning in 1992 and then as foreign and prime minister since 2007.
“I just don’t believe the people who say there won’t be any changes,” he said, offering what may be a case of wishful thinking.
“I’ve never seen any evidence that Sheik Tamim has a particular desire to focus internationally,” said David Roberts, the director of the Qatar branch of the Royal United Services Institute, a prominent British research center. “It’s never been in evidence.”
But what can the new emir change?
The speech Tuesday was being followed an hour later by an event known as a “mubaya,” in which prominent citizens welcome his successor. The new emir is expected to deliver his first speech on Wednesday, the same day the cabinet is to resign and the new one, minus at least Prime Minister Hamad, is to be sworn in.
Many analysts say that Qatar’s aggressive interventionist foreign policy has become too integral a part of its national character to be rolled back. The betting is that the new foreign minister — expected to be appointed on Thursday with a new cabinet — will be promoted from within. Some here believe it may be Khalid Al-Attiyah, the deputy foreign minister, who is close to the emir and a supporter of his many international ventures.
Eighteen years ago, Sheik Hamad, then in his early 40s, deposed his own father in a bloodless coup that began the transformation of Qatar from a well-heeled backwater into a fantastically rich modern country. Since then, the Qataris have wielded their great wealth to, as the scholar F. Gregory Gause III of the Brookings Institution put it, “punch above their weight.”
“I think you’ll see some very big gestures from Sheik Tamim,” said John Watts, who works here for BLJ Worldwide, a well-paid consulting firm that acts as strategic adviser to the royal family and the Qatari government. The release of Mr. Al-Dheeb, the imprisoned poet? “That may well be one of them.”
Sheik Hamad’s 180-degree turn took a country that has fewer citizens than Reno, Nev., has residents and used its deep pockets to influence events from Morocco to the Philippines. It also won a controversial bid for the 2022 World Cup; dragged I. M. Pei out of retirement to make the Museum of Islamic Art a world-class institution rivaling the Louvre, at least architecturally; and most recently hosted an office for peace talks with the Taliban that some claim is costing $100 million. Along the way, Qatari military aid helped topple an old friend of the emir’s, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and is now taking aim at another former friend, Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
“I haven’t heard anything specific about his policy agenda, but that would fit into his nature and character,” Mr. Watts said.
Now, however, is the emirate in for another screeching about-face?
The outgoing emir himself seemed to be priming the pump for change in a televised address to the nation at 8 a.m. (Oddly, since in the heat of summer few Qataris are actually awake that early).
As with so much in Qatar, just what will happen is opaque in the extreme — or as Mr. Roberts put it, “The sum total of rumor here isn’t really worth much.” For a country that brought the world Al Jazeera, it is notoriously secretive, with no real freedom of press at home.
“The time has come to turn a new leaf in the history of our nation, where a new generation steps forward to shoulder the responsibility with their dynamic potential and creative thoughts,” the emir said.
Many Qataris privately say the abdication has been whispered about for months, though no one is clear why. One theory is health problems. The emir is known to have had two kidney transplants, and while still active, he has lost a lot of weight recently.
That of course could mean anything — or everything.
But the Qatari official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to do so, said the emir’s decision to abdicate “has nothing to do with his health.”
One official close to the royal family said that the new cabinet would include at least one woman, and possibly two — a first here, and a rarity in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf.
“He’s been working on this for the past three years,” the official said, adding: “He thinks this is a good time for the younger generation to take over. The emir himself was very young when he came to power 18 years ago, and he wants to continue that.”
“This is hugely exciting,” said Mike Holtzman, the president of BLJ Worldwide. While it is unusual in the region for a ruler to voluntarily step down, he said, “but to those who follow Qatar, it is very much in keeping; they have invested heavily in their young people.”
Many Qataris now see international interventions as a vital part of the country’s identity — and even an important protection for it.
The incoming emir is an enigma, even to his own people, because until now his role has been in the background. “I don’t think Tamim and his father are far apart, philosophically,” said one former diplomat who has served in Qatar and who spoke anonymously in keeping with protocol. “But he’s done a good job of playing his cards close to his chest.”
“We’re a very small country with tremendous wealth and a small population, but unfortunately we don’t live in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood,” said Hassan al-Ansari, editor in chief of The Qatar Tribune. “For us, it’s a very effective way to have a say in the future of this neighborhood.”
That has led to a school of thought here that he is socially conservative — none of his own three wives has anything like the high political profile role enjoyed by his mother, Sheika Mozah.
What works for Qatar is not just its great wealth and its willingness to spread it around, whether it is in mediating peace in Darfur and Eritrea or winning the release of 200 Moroccan hostages held by the Polisario Front, said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center, based in Geneva. It is also that the emirate is too small to threaten anyone, he said.
“It’s just not true” that he is socially conservative, Mr. Holtzman said. For years, he was in the wings as his father and his prime minister ran the country, so people had little basis on which to judge him.
“Nobody fears Qatar that they have ambitions against them, because they are a very small country,” Mr. Alani said. “All they have to gain is publicity and respect — nothing beyond this.”
“Now that he’s got the reigns, he’ll be showing concern for human rights, worker safety,” he said. “He has the wind at his back.”
It has helped, too, that even in the midst of the Arab Spring, Qatar’s rulers have faced little internal criticism, at least in part because of generous social programs for citizens and a per-capita income that, at more than $100,000 a year, is the highest in the world.
And democracy?
Qatar’s foreign critics have frequently pointed out the contradiction in the often clamorous support for freedom in other countries from an absolute monarchy, where the same family has ruled since the mid-1800s.
“Well, Qatar is already a very open society.”
Last year, the government prosecuted a poet, Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami, for verses that mocked the royal family (“Sheiks playing on their PlayStations” was one line), under a constitutional ban on criticism of the emir; he was given life in prison, though that was shortened to 15 years on appeal.
The emir and his prime minister have made up for chronic manpower shortages by personally taking a hand in many of their initiatives, most recently playing a high-profile role in persuading the Friends of Syria grouping to increase aid to Syrian rebels, including direct military aid from Qatar itself.
“These were two men with the same international perspective, the same gusto to go and do it, two amazingly atypical men who happened to come out of the same country,” Mr. Roberts said.
They have also not shied away from playing both sides of a rough street. In the process, nine Arab countries and Ethiopia have broken off relations with Qatar, often in protest at coverage by Al Jazeera, which is underwritten by the Qatari government to the tune of $200 million to $300 million annually, according to Mr. Alani. All those countries resumed relations in time.
The Qataris have managed, as well, to have friends among hard-line Islamist groups — a State Department cable released through WikiLeaks criticized their timidity against terrorists — while at the same time serving as the longtime hosts of America’s biggest military base in the Middle East, the forward headquarters of the Pentagon’s Central Command, at Al Udeid Air Base.
“The Qataris’ approach to things is very ambitious, punch above their weight, be involved in as many arenas as possible, but have that core American military relationship as their security backstop, and then have relationships with all sorts of groups and people,” said Mr. Gause, who is affiliated with the Doha office of Brookings.
With so many irons in such a diversity of fires, the emir’s decision is something of a mystery. The biggest question is what will happen to Prime Minister Hamad. He has not only been foreign minister since 1992, before the emir seized power from his father, but is also widely viewed as the emir’s bagman in arranging that coup.
“It is just inconceivable that H.B.J. could remain in office with a 33-year-old emir the age of his own sons,” said a longtime resident here, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, mindful of that clause in the Constitution that makes it a crime to criticize the emir.
Less clear is what the abdicating emir himself will do. After he deposed his father while the father was out of the country on a vacation, he brought him back home. Now 80, the father still lives in retirement in Qatar, soon to be joined by the son who ousted him.
Robert F. Worth contributed reporting from Washington.
Robert F. Worth contributed reporting from Washington.
