Qatar coup stories are of course dime-a-dozen. Doha has many potential enemies, from Iran and pro-Assad groups, to anti-Muslim Brotherhood regimes like Saudi Arabia who are with Qatar in the anti-Assad camp. The latest in the rumour mill is a bit more intriguing – that the Emir could be preparing to transfer much if not most of his powers to the heir apparent Prince Tameem.
Born in 1980, Tameem was announced crown prince in 2003, replacing his brother Jassim, born in 1978. Both are sons by his second and favourite wife Sheikha Moza. Diplomatic speculation at the time was that Jassim had been too ambitious for further powers, while Tameem felt sidelined. One thing is clear: Tameem has become a lot more prominent in state media. The grooming for power seems to have been notched up a gear. The timing is interesting because Qatar under the team running it since the 1995 coup has embarked in the last two years on its most outrageous adventures of all: the project to empower Muslim Brotherhood groups throughout the region and the effort to bring down Bashar al-Assad. The animus felt by a range of forces towards Doha is intense.
While this might look like an attempt to remove a controversial leader and appease the naysayers, it might better be read as the biggest coup of them all pulled off by Doha: set the post-Arab Spring precedent of a Gulf ruler voluntarily standing down, while ensuring the change is denuded of any real meaning at the level of policy. Tameem’s crash course in the high politics of state involves just the same advisors as his father. There would be the bitterest of stings in that tail: that the end of a nightmare for peers such as Al Saud is just another elaborate policy designed to set Qatar apart.
When to pull it off? Qatar said two years ago it would hold elections to its advisory council this year. There’s no indication of them happening in the coming months. The rumours say they will be next year and provide the perfect setting for Qatar’s next trick but a complication would the prime minister, a central partner in the 1995 project – that he should agree to stand down too.
