Queen Rania's husband in front of Queen Noor's son.
The game of thrones that destabilizes Abdullah II, 60, has apparently ended with the resignation of his half-brother, eldest son of the fourth and last marriage of a common father: King Hussein of Jordan, who died in 1999. Prince Hamzah , 42, who was designated heir to the throne when his half-brother came to the throne, has renounced the dynastic title in a letter posted on Twitter on Sunday.
Suspected of sedition in a "foreign-inspired" conspiracy that put a member of the royal family and a former minister behind bars, he has been under de facto house arrest since April 2021.
“I have come to the conclusion that the convictions and principles that my father instilled in me are no longer related to the drift that our institutions follow”, justifies his departure from the dynastic line, from which he was separated in 2004, shortly after having formed his own family, in favor of the eldest son of Rania and Abdullah, the current Crown Prince Hussein, 27 years old.
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Jordan: From Abdullah to Hamzah, who's who in the Hashemite royal family
Lineage and the right to the throne do not always run in parallel in the Arab monarchies, concerned above all with perpetuating the stability of the throne in the face of eventual regicides.
King Hussein himself conferred the title of heir to his brother, Prince Hasan, before choosing, already on his deathbed, between Abdullah, the first of his male descendants, and his son of his favorite, then-teenage Hamzah.
He chose the first-born son with his second wife, Princess Muna, of British descent, over the one he had with Noor of Jordan, of American origin.
The designation of Hamzah as heir by Abdullah, in accordance with tradition, was the family pact that facilitated the succession in the Hashemite monarchy.
The decision pleased Dowager Consort Noor, but the new queen Rania soon asserted the first blood right of her first child.
Since then, the relationship between the two stepbrothers has continued to worsen.
A year ago, the attempted sedition sharpened dynastic tension in the oasis of calm and security that Jordan aspires to represent amid the turmoil in the Middle East.
Best known as an exotic tourist destination and for the coated-paper glamor of its royalty, the country that borders the eastern bank of the Jordan River is no stranger to Bedouin-Palestinian identity riots, political and social unrest, and palace conspiracies.
Members of the Hashemite royal family at an event in Amman on Sunday.
In the first row, to the right, King Abdullah II.
In the second, in the center, Prince Hamzah. YOUSSEF ALLAN / EFE
The analysts of the Jordanian press now highlight the contradiction between the request for forgiveness that the former crown prince presented a month ago in person to the monarch, according to a statement from the Royal House, and the resignation that he has made public on social networks. , coinciding with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
He now limits himself to announcing that he will continue to serve his country "from a private activity."
He had been sorry before.
"I was wrong, Your Majesty, and to err is human," he wrote in the letter released in March.
"However, I take responsibility for the acts I committed [against the king], and I apologize to the people of Jordan," he added.
The not at all fraternal hereditary dispute over the throne of Haman also hides the fracture failure of a nation that has just turned a century since its creation.
The Transjordan established under the colonial administration of the United Kingdom at the end of the Second World War was designed to welcome Bedouin tribes outside the British Mandate over the current territories of Israel and Palestine.
Abdullah II's marriage to the Palestinian Rania, born in exile to a family that fled after the birth of the Jewish state in 1948, largely embodies the pact between the country's two great communities.
Prince Hamzah, for his part, represents the defense of the privileges of the
herak,
Bedouin tribal brotherhoods, who view Jordan's transformation into an increasingly diverse society with concern.
Last summer, a military court sentenced Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a member of the royal family and childhood friend of the monarch, and former minister and royal adviser Basem Awadala, to 15 years in prison for their involvement in the plot of sedition attributed to the prince. Hamzah.
Both also have Saudi nationality and have maintained close relations with Mohamed Bin Salmán, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and
de facto
strong man in Riyadh.
When Hamzah was harassed by the
Jordanian mujabart (
intelligence services), a year ago he broadcast a video through the British network BBC in which he denounced "the mismanagement, incompetence and corruption that have prevailed in Jordan for 15 years. ”.
He has not been seen in public since, a few days after the recording was broadcast, he participated with the rest of the royal family in a ceremony honoring the ancestors of the Hashemite dynasty.
Luxury houses not declared by the king abroad
The so
-called Pandora Papers,
A leak obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, in whose analysis EL PAÍS collaborated, revealed last October that Abdalá II is the owner of 14 undeclared luxury homes, distributed throughout the United Kingdom and the United States.
The properties were acquired through shell companies registered in tax havens, and their total value amounts to more than 96 million euros.
The dwellings include a house in Ascot, UK, where the favorite horse races of the British aristocracy are held;
various apartments in central London;
another four luxury apartments in Washington, USA, with panoramic views of the Potomac River, and three adjoining waterfront homes in Point Dume, near Los Angeles, California.
Jordan's economy has been withering for some time, with an unemployment rate of more than 25% (40% among those under 30), and with more than a million Syrian refugees in its care, among 10 million inhabitants.
The consequences of the war in neighboring Iraq and Syria have exacerbated its decline as a commercial crossroads.
And the new regional order that emerged from the so-called Abraham Accords (signed by Israel and the Gulf and Maghreb monarchies to deal with Iran) has ended up relegating the old Jordanian islet of stability to the troubled waters of the Middle East.