I said on Twatter I'd write a post about Sheikh Mansour and recent AD/UAE political developments and this seems as good a thread as any.
There has been some political gamemanship/wrangling in the UAE over the past year or so that has affected Sheikh Mansour's position greatly. You can see pre-cursors to this post written in 2021
here covering how important SM was at the time,
here considering how important Khaldoon was at the time, and
this and
this which is a small bit of historical info.
Firstly we need to cover the big changes since those posts. Sheikh Khalifa, the eldest son of Zayed and at the time the official President has died and his brother, MBZ (Mohammed bin Zayed) has gone from power behind the throne to President. This was an expected appointment. When Zayed put his country together and united all the tribes into the UAE, one of the ways he brokered the deal was to establish unwritten traditions regarding the power structure. The President would be an Al Nayhan from Abu Dhabi. The Vice President would be an Al Maktoum from Dubai. The Vice President would also be the Prime Minister. And (at least one of) the Deputy Prime Minister would be an Al Nayhan. Essentially the two "ceremonial roles" of Vice President and Deputy PM were split one each and the actually powerful roles of President and PM were split equally between the two families. As I say, this was never written into any constitution but everybody sort of knew the score.
Another change in the geo-political landscape there is that the UAE has always allied itself to the US but as rulers in the region start to see the decline of the US as the world's only superpower then they have started becoming a lot more multi-lateral in their politics; essentially they want to do business with Russia, China and the US rather than acquiescing to the US all the time. The UAE and US relationship has been deteriorating for a few years. In 2017, the Saudis (and UAE) cut diplomatic ties with Qatar due to their perceived relationship with Iran and they all wanted the US to back them who sort of fence sat. Iran vs Saudi Arabia is effectively a Cold War at this point and the UAE is under the sphere of the Saudis. The media often describe them as "strong allies" but this is more out of necessity than genuine emotion, they're still disputing land treaties from 50 years ago with each other and the founder of the UAE earned lots of respect by "sticking up against" the Saudis for his people in the past.
Both Qatar and
the UAE had "unregistered lobbyists" arrested by the US Government.
The key thing here though is that while the US brokered the ending of the blockade, it was considered that all that happened was that Qatar became closer to Iran politically and both economically/militarily stronger as a result of these deals. So that caused some suspicion.
After this in early 2021,
there was a dumb ass diplomatic incident in which the UAE military asked for help doing mid-air refuelling to defend from an ongoing drone attacks from the Houthis. The Americans said yes. Then had their Ambassador later bill the President of the UAE for the fuel. Obviously apologies were issued all around but these types of incidents stick in the craw as evidence of the US' continuing "abandonment" of the region. Hence Russia and China now want to be bessie mates with all the Gulf nations, both to subvert US influence and gain themselves some tasty trade partners in the defence, emergent technology and energy sectors.
The interesting thing here though, is that MBS (the "defacto" leader of Saudi Arabia not to be confused with MBZ who is the leader of the UAE) is considered as a bit of a dullard in terms of political vision in the region and has made some strategic errors (specifically in the dealing with Israel
and him following King Salman and not signing the Abraham Accords yet). So the constant US-Saudi relationship is not as impactful as it was in the past in terms of influencing the other states, and they're exploring different futures.
So that's the context of what happened - a country that has a bit of uncertainty around it at the moment and is potentially looking at re-examining its future. Now here's where Sheikh Mansour comes in.
You see back in 2021 when those posts were made, Sheikh Mansour was an important guy because of his heritage more than his actual job. As one of the "six sons" known as the
Bani Fatima, he was one of Zayed's favoured sons so was always going to be important but he wasn't actually IMPORTANT if that makes sense? Things have changed since the proper ascension of MBZ and the changing relationship with US/Saudi.
Sheikh Mansour has now become a real player in the UAE. He is Minister of Agriculture, which seems to be a personal of interest of his too, and he was given the ceremonial role of Deputy PM by MBZ's predecessor because he carried the right blood. Then he was given the Minster of Presidential Affairs which was his actual power base. The person who controls access to the leader is usually one of the more powerful people in any realm (as Bormann proved in the late Hitler terms). But as he was a nobody outside of this and his sperm, it was argued that he could also be a glorified bouncer, a guy sent to tell unimportant people to fuck off. There was really a question of his leadership and political power and most analysts came down on the "nepotism" side of things.
The big move though is that 4 months ago, he was appointed Co-Vice President of the UAE. Keen memory havers might recall from earlier in this post that the Vice President and PM of the UAE are always from the Dubai based family. Well not any more, in a controversial move that broke with tradition, MBZ appointed Mansour as a "co-role". And this "co-role" is essentially like how Roy Evans and Gerrard Houllier were "co-managers" at Liverpool; that is to say, not really.
The diplomatic world is a little odd in as much as what events you attend tell the other party things. There's sort of an "order of importance" in the UAE with the representatives. So obviously if you're wanting to go to a huge international summit then MBZ goes. If the Ambassador of Sealand turns up stinking of fish then you send your third cousin twice removed. Sheikh Mansour is now essentially number two in the UAE functionally in diplomatic and presumably influential terms. When the Crown Prince of Jordan got married (a huge event in the Arab world for the "next gen leaders" to mingle and who the UK sent William and Kate), Sheikh Mansour went. At the recent Arab League summit conference in Jeddah,
Sheikh Mansour went instead of MBZ because he wanted to snub MBS of Saudi Arabia (and as he was personally invited by him then this is a pretty big deal).
There is talk of potential succession planning going on here. MBZ named his son as the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi (the state) and its thought he may be next in line for Presidency of the UAE. But movements by Sheikh Mansour and how much his public profile and responsibility has risen in recent months have some wondering if he's to be the "power behind the throne" or if he fancies a go himself. It would be an incredible break from tradition but after the Co-VP stuff, it's all a bit in the air. There's an idea that Abu Dhabi is attempting to centralise all power in the UAE in its own Emirate and the Al Maktoum's are being sidelined after some pretty awful mismanagement of their business and reputations. I'm not sure that it's a coincidence that Sheikh Mansour has been photographed now at the Coronation with Prince Charles, meeting with Zelensky, meeting with Erodogan, attending world leader summits and social events and of course in the CL Final and other media appearances, all within the last few months after being pretty low profile (comparatively) before. These people don't just turn up whenever they want, their appearances are carefully planned and seeing MBZ and Mansour in a warm embrace while celebrating is going to be a big deal in terms of reputation and diplomacy.
How this all shakes out is going to be pretty interesting and will have impacts on City in the medium term. A world leader cannot own a football club as every stain on it becomes a stain on him. It is worth noting that one of Mansour's sons is an avid City fan and has attended more than two games, and there's a feeling that he could be involved in ownership sooner rather than later as although he's young, he grew up as an ardent City fan and he's got Uncle Khaldoon to help advise him in matters that may need his attention. None of this will happen tomorrow of course, but it's something to be watching with Mansour's increased media presence and the moves that Abu Dhabi are making against the US, Saudis and some of the other tribes. Just wanted to jot some events down in a post a bit.
