Sultan of Brunei

Hassanal Bolkiah, Sultan of Brunei

Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Al-Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Almarhum Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Sa'adul Khairi Waddien, GCB GCMG (born July 15, 1946) is the 29th Sultan of Brunei, the eldest son of Omar Ali Saifuddin III, the previous sultan.

Crown Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah Bolkiah is the sultan's heir, born by Queen Saleha. As of 2006, he has five sons and six daughters with Queen Saleha, his former second wife, Queen Mariam, and his present second wife. Bruneian men are allowed four wives, but the sultan only has two, with Queen Anak Saleha being designated his first wife. His first second wife, Queen Mariam, was a former flight attendant whom he divorced in 2003, stripping her of all her royal titles. In August 2005 her place was taken by a former Malaysian TV3 presenter, Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim, who is 32 years younger than the sultan.

Marriage and children

His Majesty is married to Her Majesty Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Saleha and Her Royal Highness Pengiran Isteri Azrinaz Mazhar. Together, they have 11 children:

Political role as Sultan

Under Brunei's 1959 constitution, the Sultan is the head of state with full executive authority, including emergency powers since 1962. On March 9, 2006, the Sultan was reported to have changed Brunei's constitution to make himself infallible under Bruneian law.[1] Bolkiah is also the Prime Minister of Brunei, as well as holding the portfolios of Defence, and Finance.

He addressed the United States of America and Iraqi Nations and United Nations General Assembly on Brunei Darussalam's admission to the United Nations in September, 1984. In 1991, he introduced a conservative ideology to Brunei called Melayu Islam Beraja (MIB) (or Malay Islamic Monarchy), which presents the monarchy as the defender of the faith.[2] He has recently favoured partial democratisation. In 2004, the Legislative Council, which had been dissolved since 1962, was reopened.[3]

His designated successor is his eldest son, Al-Muhtadee Billah Bolkiah.

Personal wealth

The Sultan has a sizable private fortune derived from his total control over the national economy's finances and the appropriation of the state's sizeable oil revenues to bankroll his extravagant lifestyle. At one time he was the richest man in the world.

Motor cars

The Sultan is famous for his vast automobile collection. In 1998, the British car magazine Autocar published undercover photographs of the Sultan's cars, which included unique conversions of Ferraris and Bentleys into station wagons. He is variously said to have owned between 3,000 and 5,000 cars; although the number purchased by his business interests and the number actually used by himself and his family differ greatly. According to Guinness World Records the Sultan's personal private collection has 500 Rolls-Royces - the largest collection of that marque in the world. During the 1990s, his family accounted for almost half of all Rolls-Royce purchases, bulk buying slightly modified vehicles for diplomats and adding unique cars to their own collection. He also owns the very last Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, a 1992 state landaulette.

Other concerns

For personal use, the sultan possesses a Boeing 747-400 furnished with gold plated furniture, six smaller planes and two helicopters.

He also operates a $1 billion theme park called Jerudong Park, which in the past used to be free of charge.

Despite his personal extravagance, he has attempted to share the country's oil wealth. In a country mockingly dubbed the "Shellfare State" (in reference to the significant influence of the Shell Oil Company)[citation needed], Bruneians have free education and medical services. There is no personal or corporation tax in Brunei.

The Sultan of Brunei

New Internationalist magazine, May 2000

Despite his wealth, Hassanal Bolkiah Muizzaddin Waddaulah, Sultan and Prime Minister of Brunei since 1967 is surrounded by gloom. From his father he inherited a personal fortune estimated at $40 billion, which once placed him at the top of Fortune magazine's list of the world's richest people. Recent reports, however, suggest that his treasure has dwindled to a mere $10 billion-peanuts, these days.

The question is: where in earth can it all have gone? It's not so easy to blow $30 billion, which is roughly equivalent to the entire annual income of all 125 million people living in Bangladesh.

Well, a sizeable chunk of it went on the Sultan's palace, monstrosity that boasts 1,788 rooms and is larger than the Vatican-in a tiny country with just 300,000 inhabitants. When the Sultan's daughter turned 18 he bought her an Airbus. For himself he prefers his own jumbo jet, originally designed to carry over 400 people.

Great skill in extravagance has also been acquired by his brother, Prince Jefri. Having heard of Disneyland, he decided to build the Jerudong Park Playground in the capital, Bandar-Seri Begawan, at a cost of $1 billion.

Between them, the brothers Bolkiah own London's Dorchester Hotel, the New York Palace and the Plaza Athenee in Paris. After the Sultanate's independence from Britain in 1984 they bought 2,000 luxury limousines and became the world's biggest customers for Rolls Royce motor cars.

But their combined spending talents, have proved unequal to the task of disposing of the revenues that constantly flow into their private bank accounts from Shell Oil, which is responsible for extracting the Sultanate's vast but only natural resource.

So a small army of hangers-on was assembled, among them one Mohamed al Fayed. The Sultan and his brothers have long been suspected of bankrolling Fayed's subsequent purchase of the upmarket Harrods store in London. Fayed- at the centre of recent bribery scandals in the British Parliament, as well as the father of the boyfriend who died with Princess Diana-claims that during the financial crisis of 1992 the British Government approached him personally to intercede with the Sultan to keep his billions in London.

Such large sums of cash automatically attract political interest. In 1987 it was reported that when US colonel Oliver North asked the Sultanate for help in subverting the Nicaraguan Government-$10 million was duly deposited in a Swiss bank account.

Britain, in keeping with its role as the major arms supplier to the region-Brunei is an enclave in Malaysian territory on the island of Borneo, most of which is Indonesian - concluded an arms deal with the Sultan in 1991 valued at $150 million. Few people can have suspected the presence of British Gurkha (Nepalese) troops in Brunei until they emerged to join the peace-making forces in East Timor.

Even this, however, would have made only a small dent in the Sultan's wealth had it not been for straightforward financial incompetence, a prolonged fall in the price of oil, and the Asian crash of 1997. Large sums of money were lost on property deals and attempts to prop up the currencies of neighbouring countries.

So the Sultan has had to slaughter some of his polo ponies and sell off other prized trophies, such as Embankment Place in London, valued at $376 million and home to accountants Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. Last autumn, 200 British accountants from Arthur Anderson went through the books in search of what was left, as billions disappeared from the Sultan's portfolios with bankers Morgan Grenfell, JP Morgan, Citibank and Nomura. The annual $1 billion spent on running Brunei's 'Shellfare State' is now thought to be at risk, along with the polo ponies.

Though the people of Brunei are far from poverty-stricken, they have not been allowed to vote since a failed uprising in 1962. Six political prisoners incarcerated then were finally released in 1991.

Brunei is another of the stains the oil business makes wherever it goes-in the Arabian Gulf, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Burma, the Caspian Sea and, arguably, Britain as well. The grotesque extravagance and greed it engenders, and the political methods used to control its production, invariably provoke widespread chaos. In this ugly pantomime the Sultan and his brother have taken prominent roles as the world's most spendthrift individuals.

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