Bahrain's Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, one of world's longest-serving prime ministers, dies at 84 in US
The long-serving prime minister of Bahrain, Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, died on Wednesday, November 11, at the age of 84, the state media reported.
“The Royal Court mourns His Royal Highness… who passed away this morning at Mayo Clinic Hospital in the United States of America,” the Bahrain News Agency said on Wednesday, without providing further details. Incidentally, he was also one of the world’s longest-serving prime ministers who survived the 2011 Arab Spring protests which demanded his ouster over allegations of corruption.
The Gulf kingdom’s King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa announced that official mourning will be observed for a week during which flags will be flown at half-mast, the agency said. Also, work at government institutions will be suspended for three days starting from Thursday, November 12, in mourning over the prime minister's death. His body will be flown home for burial in a funeral which will be attended by a limited list of guests.
He represented an older style of leadership in the gulf country that granted patronage and favors for support of the Sunni Al Khalifa family, as reported by MSN. The 2011 protests by the island’s Shiite majority and others challenged his style of governing citing the long-running corruption allegations surrounding his rule. Despite being less powerful and physically weaker in recent years, he still exercised considerable pull over the people of his land as the new generation battled for power.
“Khalifa bin Salman represented the old guard in more ways than just age and seniority,” said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute. “He represented an old social understanding rooted in royal privilege and expressed through personal patronage.”
Khalifa bin Salman increasingly saw his name entangled in corruption allegations, such as colluding with aluminum producer Alcoa and using a London-based middleman to facilitate bribes for Bahraini officials. Alcoa ultimately agreed to pay a settlement sum of $384 million in fines to the US government in 2014. The US embassy in Manama similarly alleged that bin Salman was perpetuating corruption, writing that the prince had “off-the-books access to income from the state-owned enterprises” in companies such as the Bahrain Petroleum Co. and Aluminum Bahrain, the country’s aluminum producer. “I believe that Shaikh Khalifa is not wholly a negative influence,” said former US Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann in 2004 in a cable released by WikiLeaks. “While certainly corrupt he has built much of modern Bahrain.”
Robert Gates, a US secretary of defense under President Barack Obama, wrote in his memoirs that there were talks with the king at the time to force bin Salman from the premiership, describing him as “disliked by nearly everyone but especially the Shia. Crown Prince Salman said he was ready to become prime minister if asked and that the road map forward must include Shia representatives in the government... but he was powerless” Gates wrote. There have been attempts to take away bin Salman's control of Bahrain’s economy for years by the crown prince with the apparent approval of King Hamad.
He was admitted to hospital in November 2015 but was later released. As his health failed again, he also visited southeast Asia for medical appointments. In late November 2019, he traveled to Germany for undisclosed medical treatments, and stayed there for months. He leaves behind three children, sons Ali and Salman and daughter Lulwa. One other son, Mohammed, has died.