AGSIW: Mohammed bin Zayed marginalizes his brothers by steadily empowering his son Khaled

Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) said that the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the de facto ruler of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed, marginalizes his brothers by steadily strengthening his eldest son Khaled.

In Washington, the Arab Gulf States Institute stated in an article by the senior researcher Christine Smith Diwan that Mohammed bin Zayed is empowering his son Khalid by appointing him to important positions in the Abu Dhabi government.

The institute indicated that the reorganization of Abu Dhabi government institutions during the past several months had confirmed the steady rise of Khalid bin Mohamed bin Zayed, the eldest son of the de facto ruler of the UAE, to positions of power.

In October 2019, he joined the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, the wealthiest emirate’s governing body in the UAE.

In December 2020, he joined the board of directors of the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs. This new body oversees Abu Dhabi’s economy, including the vital oil and gas sector.

In March, he was appointed to the newly formed council of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the state-owned company and the emirate’s primary source of wealth.

Moreover, he is the head of the executive offices of the political and petroleum sectors. This new position gives him leadership experience and broad influence in the government administration’s political and economic aspects.

The AGSIW highlighted that the increase in the influence and powers of Khalid bin Mohamed bin Zayed comes at the expense of the brothers of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and the previous approach in the Emirates with power-sharing and consensual decision-making.

Succession to the position of Crown Prince

With the continuing decline in the health of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the United Arab Emirates, it is expected that Mohammed bin Zayed will be announced as President of the State at any time.

Here, the conflict emerges over who is more appropriate to succeed Mohammed bin Zayed, his brother Tahnoon bin Zayed, or his son Khalid bin Mohammed.

There has been much talk about these two personalities since Tahnoun is considered the second man in the Emirates and the master of its intelligence system.

Tahnoun chairs the Abu Dhabi Committee for Strategic Affairs and is the first to control Emirati chaos strings in the region.

Tahnoon also controls major commercial institutions in the country, such as ADQ Holding, the country’s most influential company.

He is also the President of First Abu Dhabi Bank and Chairman of the Royal Group and International Holding Company in the Emirates.

As for Khalid bin Mohammed bin Zayed, he is the head of the notorious State Security Agency and deputy advisor to the Supreme Council for National Security and the deputy head of the Abu Dhabi Executive Office.

Mohammed bin Zayed has been working for years to prepare his son Khalid to be his successor.

In this regard, there is talk within the papers of decision-makers about Mohammed bin Zayed’s endeavour to appoint his son as a national security advisor instead of Tahnoun, which the latter dismisses as an attempted coup.

Previous leaks revealed Mohammed bin Zayed’s persistent attempts and those close to him to undermine Tahnoun’s status because of the danger he poses.

Economic struggle

In addition to the struggle for chairs and positions, intense competition occurs between Tahnoon bin Zayed and Khalid bin Mohammed bin Zayed over economic privileges.

The Intelligence Online said that a conflict within the ruling family in Abu Dhabi had caused a rift in the most prominent defence companies in the UAE.

The site is intended for the UAE defence giant EDGE, which is the parent company of several strategically essential defence companies to Abu Dhabi.

As EDGE is undergoing a significant restructuring process, the CEO of the company, Faisal Al Bannai, who is the former chairman of DarkMatter, recently underwent a management review.

The company is preparing to install a new leadership soon, according to Intelligence Online.

This new development comes shortly after the sudden dismissal, which took place earlier this month, of the head of the company’s platforms and systems sector, Fahad Al-Yafei, a former expert in the Emirates Economic Balance Council (governmental).

The sources say, Al-Yafei was secretly detained in December 2020 and January 2021, before his release last month.

Just a few months before that, Hamid Al-Shammari was dismissed from the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of Edge.

Al-Bannai played an influential role in establishing EDGE from scratch by bringing together the companies that the UAE tried for the first time to regroup under the Emirates Military Industries Company (EDIC).

Al-Bannai continued to concentrate more power in Edge companies. This essentially led to the removal of the independence of the board of directors of each company.

The administrative turmoil explains why several leading EDGE programs have been halted, including those run by Aqualia Airspace, which develops an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform, and the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Systems Investment Company (ADASI), which manufactures unmanned aircraft.

Overseeing these programs was Al-Shammari, close to the head of the sovereign fund “Mubadala” Khaldoun Al-Mubarak, the right hand of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.

The company’s instability is linked to conflicts within the younger generations of the ruling Al Nahyan family.

Many royal family figures are not satisfied with the enmity between National Security Adviser Tahnoun bin Zayed, whose institution oversaw administrative investigations with Al-Shammari and Al-Bannai, and Khaled bin Mohammed, son of the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, who is being prepared to assume a political role.

Khalid bin Mohammed, who heads the state security apparatus, is considered al-Bannai’s leading supporter as Edge’s CEO.

While Khalid bin Mohammed was testing his political influence, his uncle Tahnoon was busy building a security and intelligence empire.

The Holding Company (ADQ), which Tahnoon heads, increased its stakes in critical sectors in the emirate and beyond.

Last November, the Holding Company acquired a stake in Louis Dreyfus (specialized in agriculture, food processing and shipping / based in the Netherlands).

Some argue that “the Holding wants to swallow Edge eventually.”

For example, Group 42, a subsidiary of the Holding, which has a host of big data projects in areas such as genomics and multiple intelligence source platforms using Huawei’s infrastructure, deepens the Tahnoun empire the Edge of business.

The holding company is developing the Digital 14 company, which acquired some of the cyber-attack activities of the DarkMatter company. At the same time, the rest of the DarkMatter was merged into the Edge.

The two sides are now battling to lead some of the country’s most secretive programs, including Internet projects and the multiple intelligence resource platforms being developed by Beam Trail.