Issue 759, 10 June 2005

Fahd’s illness restores Saudi dynastic rivalries to centre stage

Optimistic health bulletins are not enough to dispel questions about Saudi Arabia’s long-term future. GSN examines the political and security aspects surrounding what many believe is King Fahd’s final illness.

The Saudi political world tends to stop when the senior Al-Saud leadership is distracted by in-fighting and affairs closest to home. The state of Saudi Arabia’s stop-start reform programme thus remains uncertain as King Fahd’s hospitalisation refocuses attention on the balance of power and influence among leading figures in the ruling family.

Fahd, officially cited as 82-years-old but possibly as old as 86, and recovering from pneumonia, remains the Kingdom’s titular figurehead. As has been the case since the monarch’s 1995 stroke, the crucial tussle for influence continues to be played out among Crown Prince Abdallah Bin Abdelaziz and the senior Sudairi princes (Fahd’s full brothers), which the King’s latest illness has only intensified.

Amid renewed concern about security issues and the courts’ imposition of hefty prison sentences on liberal campaigners, the ability of Abdallah and his allies to sustain forward momentum for cautious modernisation appears unclear. Reform supporters told GSN that they saw the mid-May verdicts and harsh sentences on Ali Al-Domaini, Abdallah Al-Hamed and Matrouk Al-Faleh as a confirmation of the increasing strength of the conservative Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdelaziz, who is closely allied with judiciary chief Saleh Al-Heidan (GSN 758/6, 757/3).

Reformists fear Abdallah has been seriously weakened by his failure to intervene to secure the convicted trio’s release, while their harsh treatment has intimidated many of the other 163 liberals and moderate Islamists who signed the reform petitions tacitly encouraged by Abdallah over the past two years. Saudi commentators said they were now not even free to meet the media or to leave the Kingdom.

Within the Al-Saud hierarchy, things are even less clear, although the broad lines of the immediate succession do seem to be in place. Each political player and analyst canvassed by GSN in the Kingdom and abroad had a different view of the extent to which senior princes had been weakened or reinforced their position by recent events. Several commented that Abdallah has been weakened by in-fighting with King Fahd’s full brothers (the Sudairis), led by the man widely expected to replace him as crown prince once he becomes king, Second Deputy Prime Minister, Defence and Aviation Minister Prince Sultan (who has himself suffered from stomach cancer, which sources say was controlled, and general ill-health), and Prince Nayef. However, US military sources said that if push came to shove, Abdallah’s Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) retained a leading edge among domestic security forces (more).

Succession gossip

Much gossip concerns behind-the-scenes dealing to establish a new succession formula. Assuming that Fahd does not have a death-bed reversal of his commitment that Abdallah becomes king – as Jordan’s late King Hussein had when he named his own son, now King Abdallah II, to succeed him instead of his brother Hassan Bin Talal, then known as Crown Prince Hassan – the key question is who is next in line to Prince Sultan as crown prince?

Several key groups would expect to be consulted, including the Al-Faisals and others concerned that Fahd’s full family, do not stitch up the succession process. Arguably the most intellectually qualified and charismatic potential ruler, Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal, is ruled out by health troubles – itself a recognition that Saud believes a new king should be younger and vigorous.

In these dealings much focus is on a possible shift to a third generation Al-Saud to be anointed crown prince after Sultan – although what Nayef and Riyadh governor Prince Salman think about this is unclear. Several candidates are mentioned. The ailing King, his formidable wife and sometime gatekeeper Johar and her family would opt for the extravagantly wealthy Prince Abdelaziz Bin Fahd, who in his early 30s is already a member of the Council of Ministers. However, this would not otherwise be a popular choice. Prince Saud Bin Fahd, the King’s surviving son by his late Sudairi wife, is older but further from the centre of politics, although he has an important role overseeing foreign intelligence.

A deal is talked about in which a younger Sudairi, more acceptable to a wider variety of factions emerges, such as the US-educated Secretary General of the Higher Tourism Commission, Prince Sultan Bin Salman, to name one of several GSN has noted in recent discussions. But outside the inner circle one guess seems as good as another. Compared with the Sudairis, Abdallah is relatively isolated; Saud Al-Faisal has been his closest political ally. But he retains two important assets: he is next in line to the throne and he is widely liked and respected among the public. These points do not yet translate into real deciding power in Saudi Arabia, but they cannot be ignored. A range of sources claim Abdallah is now regularly overridden by Nayef and Sultan, who dominate the security agenda, while Abdallah’s strongest card is his oversight of the political development agenda.

Not a constitutional monarchy

It may be that Al-Dumaini, Al-Hamed and Al-Faleh have been punished so severely because their talk of constitutional monarchy questioned the Al-Sauds’ role directly in a way that other campaigners, for parliamentary elections or women’s rights, do not. But the bubbly state of public debate indicates that the issue of political development will not fade away, even if a few symbolic figureheads have been so publicly punished. The reformist trio’s trial was notably covered by the local press.

At the same time, the Al-Sauds’ long-term dynastic evolution is unclear. Nayef has prominence on security while Abdallah and Saud Al-Faisal handle the delicate and often domestically unpopular task of public engagement with the United States and Europe. But Sultan has kept a lower profile, as has the younger Sudairi, Riyadh governor Prince Salman Bin Abdelaziz.

Salman has cultivated close relationships with the Mutawin religious police, who have close everyday dealings with the public and are thus well placed to keep him briefed on the popular mood – even if they themselves are deeply unpopular. The Ulema are also significant players in the current complex interplay of influences. Indeed, their veiled clout became only too clear during the recent municipal elections, with the circulation by email and phone text, in city after city, of so-called “golden lists” of candidates favoured by the clergy.

Amidst a disparate and crowded field of rivals who had failed to organise effectively, these designated religious conservatives triumphed in Riyadh and even liberal Jeddah. It is still unclear who exactly was behind the lists’ drafting and circulation, after the senior clerical establishment publicly eschewed the option of stating their electoral preferences. Some Islamist insiders believe that supporters of ‘co-opted’ radical clerics Salman Al-Awda and Mohsen Al-Awaji might have been involved. The two clerics have mended fences with the government But when it comes to top religious posts, they are still likely to lose out to more obvious establishment players such as Mohsen Al-Obeikan, who has ties to the Al-Saud and has now become a member of the Council of Senior Ulema.