President oversaw growth of Abu Dhabi from desert state to modern metropolis

Few leaders have overseen a transformation of their country as dramatic as that over which Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan presided during his 18 years as emir of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates – the federation of seven semiautonomous city states that Abu Dhabi leads.

With the help of Abu Dhabi’s vast oil wealth, Khalifa’s father began the emirate’s metamorphosis into a modern metropolis, and Khalifa accelerated it.

Abu Dhabi’s cultural quarter now boasts branches of the Louvre museum and of the Sorbonne and New York universities. It has its own airline, Etihad. It owns Manchester City football club. It is building a futuristic, carbonneutral city called Masdar in the desert to the south.

Khalifa, who has died aged 73, created a generous welfare system for his citizens. He sought to end Abu Dhabi’s dependence on hydrocarbons by diversifying into renewable energy, finance and tourism. During his reign, Abu Dhabi acquired geopolitical importance too.

He was a staunch ally of the West, hostile to Iran and broke ranks with much of the Arab world by restoring diplomatic relations with Israel. He sent UAE troops to support the US-led intervention that deposed Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. His military worked closely with that of the US in Afghanistan. He supported rebels fighting the Syrian regime and backed the West’s fight against Islamic State.

He introduced a measure of democracy and social liberalisation, but for all that he retained despotic tendencies. He cracked down on suspected opponents during the Arab Spring of 2011, and critics accused him of human rights abuses against opposition activists and migrant workers.

He backed Bahrain’s crackdown on antigovernment protests and supported the Egyptian military’s suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood. For a while, he also supported the Saudis’ bloody war against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

After he suffered a stroke in 2014 he was rarely seen in public again, and delegated much of his work to his younger half-brother, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who will succeed him.

Khalifa was one of the world’s richest heads of state, with a personal fortune worth more than US$20 billion. He amassed an extensive property portfolio in Britain and Europe, and a superyacht that reportedly cost nearly US$500 million.

Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan alNahyan was born in Qasr al-Muwaiji, a fort in the oasis city of al Ain. In those days Abu Dhabi was a poor British protectorate, and remained so until its oil started flowing in the late 1950s.

Khalifa was the oldest of about 30 children of Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, whom the British installed as Abu Dhabi’s ruler after a bloodless coup against his elder brother in 1966. He received little formal education but enjoyed falconry and camel racing and was sent to Britain’s Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in his late teens.

Zayed was the driving force behind the formation of the UAE after the British withdrew and the emirates gained their independence in 1971. As Abu Dhabi was the largest and richest emirate, Zayed became the UAE’s first president.

Khalifa, who had eight children with Shamsa bint Suhail al Mazrouei, continued to accrue power and influence as Abu Dhabi’s prime minister, defence minister and finance minister, and as deputy commander of the UAE’s armed forces. He also took charge of the UAE’s Supreme Oil Council.

When his father died in 2004, Khalifa succeeded him as emir of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE, and accelerated the emirate’s massive programme of economic development with the help of a sovereign wealth fund that is now worth about US$700b, the world’s fourth largest.

He built roads, schools and hospitals and established one of the world’s most generous welfare systems. He took a modest step towards democracy, allowing limited elections for half the seats on the UAE’s Federal National Council in 2006. He allowed the US and UK to use military bases in the UAE during successive Middle East conflicts.

After his stroke, Khalifa passed much of the responsibility for governing Abu Dhabi and the UAE to half-brother Mohammed, who had been named crown prince after Zayed’s death. Thereafter it became harder to determine who was the real driving force behind the country’s economic and foreign policies.

Dubai was certainly in Khalifa’s debt. He bailed out the emirate when it was hit by the global economic crisis in 2009. In his honour, it renamed the world’s tallest building, the 830m-high Burj Dubai, the Burj Khalifa.

He introduced a measure of democracy . . . but he retained despotic tendencies.