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Royal Family Consensus: Shattering A Myth?

by Senior Analyst Talal Kapoor

During his U.K. and American trips, Crown Prince Muhammad (MbS) has faced severe criticism over the civilian casualties and unfolding humanitarian disaster in Yemen caused by Saudi's military campaign there, though his visits can be considered a success in that strategic ties were reaffirmed and significant business deals were made. Concern remains about the events surrounding the "anti-corruption" purge which ensnared at least 200 elite figures, including a number of princes, and continues to be a factor weighing against foreign investment in the Kingdom, as contrary to the aim of demonstrating resolve towards corrupt business practice, the purge appeared to the outside as a combination of a cash grab and a clampdown on dissent. Paired with the silencing of even moderate opposition voices, the sudden shock threatens to derail longer-term plans to attract foreign money and fulfill the aims of Vision 2030; indeed, there are rumblings that the massive IPO of state-owned oil giant Aramco may turn out to be a significantly more modest affair, restricted even to a local, rather than an international, offering. But despite the uncertainty and controversy, MbS is recognised as the man in charge. King Salman increasingly remains in the background, fulfilling the formal, and ceremonial, roles while he hands more and more responsibility to his son.

In fact, the sudden rise of MbS and the seeming rupture in what has been, until now, a fairly predictable, succession process, has prompted some to declare the end of royal family consensus, as though the Kingdom were about to embark on a perilous journey. More appropriately, we should question the extent to which the vaunted 'consensus' ever really existed, apart from the realm of myth. If we accept that in large measure, the family itself was responsible for perpetuating the idea that the king ruled as a sort of primus inter pares, and that the reality of the last several decades was more akin to a Mexican standoff than an amicable family gathering, it may be that the 'new' paradigm of nearly unchallenged rule by a single, immensely powerful king, is much more a return to the traditional ways of the family. In this view, the years of Kings Fahd and Abdallah were bound by a set of very specific circumstances that confined their brothers within narrow fields of influence that prevented a challenge to the leadership; at the same time, the throne was not powerful enough to remove those potential challenges entirely.

The Kingdom's founder, Ibn Saud, had no wish to govern from within any kind of family council. At the time he took control, the Al Saud was still recovering from decades in exile, and fratricidal warfare before that. His father, Abd al-Rahman, had more or less inherited what was left of the Saudi state (which did not amount to much by then) after his older brothers had fought among themselves in a back-and-forth that had drained their resources and scattered the family. Nothing tangible remained by the time Ibn Saud was growing up in Kuwait, and he felt little need later to involve the broader family as he began to consolidate control over the Najd region, and eventually nearly the whole peninsula. Some, like his Jiluwi cousins who had directly aided in the earlier military exploits, were rewarded with territory to govern virtually as fiefdoms, but this was also true of allied families such as the Sudairy. His hand was forced, however, by the continual uprisings by cousins known as the Ara'if, from the Saud al-Kabir line, nominally the family's senior line, who disputed Ibn Saud's rule in the early part of the century. After eventual defeat in battle, he chose to co-opt the branch, all but explicitly recognising that governance was to be a family enterprise. From then on, the al-Kabir line, his cousins of the Abd al-Rahman line, and even members of long-forgotten cadet branches would be involved in managing the state.

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