Saudi Arabia’s ruling princes have had plenty of time to think about life without King Fahd. He has, after all, been incapacitated for a full decade – during which time his half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, has been in charge of the day-to-day running of the Saudi state. Nevertheless Fahd’s eventual death will open up a period of uncertainty in the kingdom’s affairs.
The 81-year-old Abdullah will certainly become king, and this will give him a greater authority than hitherto. As crown prince, he has often found himself held in check by Fahd’s full brothers (sometimes known, from their mother’s name, as the Sudairi Seven). Several observers believe that Fahd’s prolonged illness has suited them, as it has deprived Abdullah of the power and prestige of kingship.
But, once he is king, how will Abdullah use his new position? His relations with two of the Sudairi Seven, Sultan and Nayef, are of particular importance. It is virtually certain he will appoint Sultan, the current defence minister, as the new Crown Prince. However, it is no secret that the two men do not get on. This is partly because they are very different personalities, partly because of a traditional rivalry between the armies which each man commands: Sultan heads the regular army, Abdullah the tribally-based National Guard.
Succession, security, reform
The succession is likely to be a medium-term rather than short-term issue. At stake is not who will succeed Fahd, but how long the elderly Abdullah will remain on the throne, whether Sultan (only a year his junior) will indeed succeed him – and whether Saudi Arabia will experience the fate of the Soviet Union in its twilight years, when one geriatric leader followed another into the grave. Looking further ahead, a different question will need to be answered: at what point will power pass from the sons of the kingdom’s founding father, Ibn Saud, to his grandsons? Is this a nettle Abdullah will choose to grasp? Or will he leave it for his successors?
A more immediate issue is whether the interior minister, Prince Nayef, will continue to dominate policy-making over the related issues of security and reform. Saudi reformists who in the past received encouragement from Crown Prince Abdullah have more recently lost faith in him. As the kingdom has battled to suppress an armed Islamist insurgency over the last two years, the reform programme has been eclipsed by Nayef’s security-driven agenda. It was Nayef who cracked down last year on those who signed a petition calling for far-reaching political, economic and social reform. And he, not Abdullah, is held responsible for the stiff jail sentences recently imposed on three well-known reformists.
Nayef and his officials claim the Islamist insurgency has largely been crushed. Nevertheless he appears less willing than Abdullah (and Abdullah’s close adviser, the foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal) to embark on meaningful reforms. The pace of future reform, following the recent municipal elections – seen as a symbolically important but limited step towards political participation -- is likely to be much slower and more cautious than many Saudis would wish.
On other important issues, there is unlikely to be any significant change of course. The senior princes have a common interest in wanting to maximize oil revenue, in part to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding and increasingly dissatisfied population. They also wish to reduce tensions with the Bush administration in Washington, in order to fend off US pressure for democratic reform and also, more fundamentally, since they continue to see the United States as an important market for their oil and as their protector-of-last-resort. Similarly, relations with Europe and Japan, seen as political as well as economic partners, are unlikely to be affected.
The central issue is how Abdullah will perform as king, and how his powerful half-brothers will allow him to perform.
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