Sultan Qaboos overthrew his father in a bloodless coup in 1970, inheriting a country with merely 10 kilometers of paved road and just three public schools, but has in the fifty years of his reign drawn the country into reckoning with modern development. He was also a powerful but quiet international figure, with one of his most recent international interventions being the successful intercession between the US and Iran that saw to the 2013 deal that eased off tensions between the two countries.
Sultan Qaboos was unmarried and did not have any biological child, thereby leaving the succession to the throne of Oman to his 50 male cousins and nephews, who must in the next three days choose a successor to the throne or allow the powerful military council to open a secret scroll in which the Sultan had written the name of his preferred successor and install him.
Leaders like him are rare and I pray for the peaceful repose of his soul. His, was a dictatorship so beneficial to his people and I endorse it more than I would a democracy that doesn’t benefit the people.
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