KUWAIT: Meshal al-Ahmed appointed crown prince - credit negative

GULF COUNTRIES - In Brief 07 Oct 2020 by Justin Alexander

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Update: while we were drafting this quick note the formal announcement was made that Sheikh Nawaf has indeed appointed his brother Meshal (also transliterated as Mishaal) as crown prince.Meshal, aged 80, has been deputy chief of the National Guard since 2004, taking over the role when Nawaf, who had held it for the previous decade, was appointed as interior minister. Parliament is expected to confirm the nomination tomorrow in its final session before elections in November. Meshal has never held a cabinet position and would be the first modern crown prince not to have done so. He has had previous roles in the interior ministry and state security. The advantage of this background is that he has stood outside the last decade of political infighting about the succession which has brought down several governments, including last year. He had not been seen as a contender until the last few weeks, with most commentators previously seeing Nasser Sabah, the son of the former Emir, or Nasser al-Mohammed, a former prime minister, as the favourites. However, given the critical moment that Kuwait is facing, it is disappointing that a younger figure with a background suited to economic reform (such as Mohamad Sabah al-Salem) wasn't selected. The expectation had been that the new crown prince would play a major day-to-day role in government, similar to MBS in Saudi Arabia, but given that Meshal is only three years younger than his brother (though possibly in better health), it is likely that Nawaf will be more active than anticipated (indeed he has been quite active over the last few months, even before his succession, including reaching out to opposition figures). This may have bee...