Oman: Small pool of potential successors to Sultan Qaboos

Speaking to board members of the Oman Journalist Association in June, minister responsible for foreign affairs Yousuf Bin Alawi Bin Abdullah directly addressed the question of succession, a rare public acknowledgment of an issue which – given Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al-Said’s advancing age – is widely seen as one of the main political risk factors facing Oman. Not that he shed any light on who might follow Qaboos, who turns 73 in November and is by far the longest-serving Gulf monarch: Bin Alawi merely said there would be “no vacuum”, and that speculation was damaging. “Rumours have become a serious problem and social media fuels it further,” he said.