When Parliament Judged a Crown Prince's Pulse

Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Salem al-Sabah had been Crown Prince for twenty-eight years. By January 2006, the heir apparent could barely speak, his body ravaged by a stroke and colon cancer. He was seventy-six, confined to a wheelchair, and flown between London hospitals and Kuwaiti palaces in a medical convoy. The Emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, lay dying at eighty-nine. According to tradition, the Al Salem branch — Saad's line — should finally ascend the throne after decades of alternating rule with the Al Jaber branch.

Instead, Kuwait's National Assembly met in a special session and voted on whether the Crown Prince was fit to rule. It was the first time in the Gulf's modern history that an elected legislature had sat in judgment on a royal succession.

The alternation pact

Since 1915, the descendants of Mubarak the Great's two sons — Jaber and Salim — had traded the emirate and the crown prince's post in a tacit agreement that kept peace within the sprawling Al Sabah family. The arrangement was not written into the 1962 constitution, but it functioned as an unwritten constitution of its own. When Sheikh Jaber (Al Jaber branch) became Emir in 1977, he named Sheikh Saad (Al Salem branch) Crown Prince. The understanding was that Saad would succeed him, then name a Jaber heir, and so on.

By 2006, the system was straining. Sheikh Jaber had been incapacitated for years, effectively sidelined by illness. Sheikh Saad, his designated successor, was now deteriorating faster. The family faced a crisis: if Saad became Emir but could not govern, who would actually run the state? And if the family skipped him, the alternation pact would break, concentrating power in the Al Jaber line.

The constitutional lever

Article 4 of the constitution required the Emir to name an heir within a year of accession, subject to parliamentary approval by majority vote. If the nominee was rejected, the Emir had to submit three alternatives from Mubarak's descendants, and the Assembly would choose one. Law No. 4 of 1964 went further: if the Emir lost capacity, power could transfer to the Crown Prince — but only with a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

These provisions had never been tested. The Al Sabah had always resolved succession internally, presenting a united front to the parliament. But in January 2006, with both Emir and heir incapacitated, the family's consensus fractured. Senior princes reportedly debated for days. Some backed Saad's son as a regent; others pushed for Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, the seventy-six-year-old prime minister and a veteran diplomat from the Al Jaber branch.

The special session

On January 24, 2006, the National Assembly convened behind closed doors. The agenda: a medical report on the Crown Prince's condition. Doctors testified that Sheikh Saad could not perform the duties of head of state. Deputies questioned the physicians directly. Some MPs argued that the constitution's intent was clear — a ruler must be capable of governing. Others warned that removing a Crown Prince on health grounds set a dangerous precedent for parliamentary interference in dynastic affairs.

The vote was not unanimous, but the majority backed a declaration that Sheikh Saad was unable to assume power. The Assembly then paved the way for Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad to be named Emir, with the family's subsequent nomination of Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad (also Al Jaber) as Crown Prince — skipping the Al Salem branch entirely.

The new balance

The 2006 succession did more than install a new Emir. It demonstrated that the National Assembly's constitutional role in approving the heir apparent was not ceremonial. The parliament had inserted itself into the most sensitive decision the ruling family makes, and the family had accepted the outcome. Since then, the Al Jaber branch has held both the emirate and the crown prince post. In 2020, Sheikh Nawaf succeeded Sheikh Sabah; in 2024, Sheikh Mishal al-Ahmad named Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid al-Hamad al-Mubarak al-Sabah — from the previously excluded Al Hamad branch — as heir, further redrawing the internal map.

The alternation tradition survives only as a memory. The parliament's vote in 2006 proved that in Kuwait's hybrid system, the elected chamber can act as a kingmaker — and that the ruling family, for all its autonomy, will bow to constitutional procedure when its own unity fails.

This is one episode in a much longer story. For the full account of Kuwait's political system, read “The Politics of Kuwait” by Sophia Castillo on MixCache.com.