Manama | Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, the world’s longest-serving prime minister since Bahrain gained independence in 1971, died on Wednesday at the age of 84, state media reported.
“The Royal Court mourns its Royal Highness … who died this morning at the Mayo Clinic hospital in the United States,” Bahraini news agency BNA said, adding that the country would observe a week of official mourning.
Sheikh Khalifa’s funeral will take place after the body is repatriated from the United States and will be limited to a number of relatives due to the novel coronavirus, BNA says.
Prince Khalifa was a central and controversial figure during his tenure. He was very unpopular with the Shia community in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
His departure was demanded by the Shiite demonstrators who had occupied Manama’s Pearl Square for a month in February 2011.
This square was renamed by thousands of demonstrators “Tahrir Square” (epicenter in Cairo of the revolt that ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power in 2011), the protesters demanding a real constitutional monarchy and political reforms.
But the uprising was crushed in mid-March after the entry of Gulf troops, especially Saudi ones, to protect vital facilities.
Praised for his leading role in the economy of this Gulf archipelago, Sheikh Khalfia has been accused by his detractors of embodying the regime’s hard line by opposing any political reform and systematically repressing dissidents.
Known to be close to Saudi Arabia, this irremovable politician adopted the greatest firmness against the protest movement of the Shiites who demonstrated to demand changes in favor of the Arab Spring of 2011. The repression was bloody.
He worked for many years to make Bahrain – which, unlike other Gulf monarchies, has only modest oil resources – a regional financial center.
Sheikh Khalifa also strengthened relations with the United States, to which his government granted military facilities at the time of Bahrain’s independence in 1971. Bahrain is home to the American Fifth Fleet and a British military base.
After the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 by Iraqi troops led by Saddam Hussein, pro-democracy protests resumed in Bahrain.
In 1992, a Majlis al-Choura, an advisory council, was created. But that did not prevent the anti-government unrest which, led by the Shiite opposition, resumed in 1994 with calls for the re-establishment of the elected parliament.
The unrest lasted until 1999 when Sheikh Hamad ascended to the throne and initiated reforms that in 2002 restored the elected Parliament.
Disorders resumed in 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring and Manama had to appeal to Riyadh to crush the uprising.
Since then, the kingdom has been shaken by sporadic disturbances fueled, according to the authorities, by “violent terrorist groups linked to Iran”, which Tehran denies.
The main opposition movements were dissolved and dozens of dissidents were imprisoned and stripped of their nationality.
This repression, denounced by human rights organizations, has not endangered the relationship between Manama and Washington.