Bahraini Prime Minister Dies at 84
Al Khalifa served as his country’s prime minister for almost 50 years (Wikipedia)
Bahraini Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has passed away at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Minnesota. Before his death on November 11, he had been the longest-serving prime minister in the world.
A member of the Sunni Al Khalifa family that has ruled Bahrain since 1783, Sheikh Khalifa became prime minister following the country’s independence from Britain in 1971. As prime minister, he commanded Bahrain’s government for close to five decades and was viewed as a staunch protector of monarchical rule. With the support of ally Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Khalifa defended his family’s hold on power and quashed an Arab Spring-inspired revolt by Bahrain’s Shia-majority population that demanded his removal amidst corruption allegations in 2011.
After half a century in power, the prime minister’s legacy will also be defined by his efforts to modernize Bahrain and create an alliance with the United States, in addition to his accumulation of wealth through corruption. Sheikh Khalifa played a significant role in overseeing Bahrain’s post-independence development, including projects such as the 1986 King Fahd Causeway, which connected the small island country in the Persian Gulf to the Arabian peninsula via Saudi Arabia. His term as prime minister also saw the development of a close security relationship between the U.S. and Bahrain centered on the basing of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in the capital of Manama. Sheikh Khalifa also leveraged his powerful position in the government for considerable personal gain––even becoming wealthy enough to purchase a private island.
Sheikh Khalifa suffered from several health complications before his death, including two heart attacks and a heart operation, which decreased his influence in the last years of his life. The former prime minister was treated in early 2020 for an unidentified ailment in Germany before returning to Bahrain in March. Under similarly unclear circumstances, Sheikh Khalifa left the small island country for what the official media purported as “a private visit abroad” in August. The U.S. State Department stated that in September, an American C-17 transported Sheikh Khalifa from Germany to a Mayo Clinic hospital in Rochester, Minnesota.
Sheikh Khalifa’s untimely death, occurring after a recently-signed normalization agreement with Israel, has deprived the kingdom’s leadership of the guidance of their most seasoned top official. Wasting little time, King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa has tapped the Crown Prince Salman al Khalifa as replacement prime minister. Salman, 51, is King Hamad’s eldest son and will be transitioning from his previous role as deputy commander of Bahrain’s military.
World leaders have offered condolences, and the Bahraini people mourn. In Bahrain, the King has declared a week of mourning and that all flags will be flown at half-mast. The state-owned Bahrain News Agency stated that “[T]he Royal Court mourns his Royal Highness… who passed away this morning at Mayo Clinic Hospital in the United States of America.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also delivered several remarks on the Bahraini prime minister’s passing, describing him as “a close friend and partner of the United States” whose death “greatly saddened” him.