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Royal Crackdowns and Vanished Princes: Shakeup Or Shakedown?

a reign of confusion?

Could the purge have been motivated by political ambition? Certainly, MbS has eliminated any threats to his continued authority, notably with the neutering of the only viable challenge to his leadership, the National Guard. While few princes were in a position to have posed a real challenge, the roundup and unprecedented detentions did send a message to anyone considering a bid, and the repercussions will outlast the media coverage of the November events. But the settlements did net an enormous amount of money for the state, and it is widely thought a cash grab was the true reason for the drive. Indeed, with foreign investment uncertain, the future of Saudi Aramco's massive IPO in doubt (recent developments have it pushed out to at least 2021) and oil revenues down in general, the country's uber-wealthy were an obvious target. In such circumstances, the attendant corruption of those involved may have been incidental.

In fact, the several aims can be illustrated by the two examples earlier, of Abd al-Aziz and Turki. Though highly regarded as Riyadh Governor, there are multiple allegations of corruption swirling around, one involving the unexplained cancellation of a government contract which is said to have enriched Turki personally. Turki was also in charge of the city's massive subway project, which was beset by delays and cost overruns; several of Turki's key aides have also fallen foul of the authorities, leading one to believe there may be more to the (unpublicised) allegations than meets the eye. At the same time, there remain few prominent princes capable of posing a genuine challenge to the eventual claim by MbS to the throne; Turki, as the son of a former monarch and with a power base of his own, was not likely to have endeared himself to an ambitious crown prince. Turki's condition is unknown. Either he refuses to settle the claims against him or he is deemed too dangerous to set free.

The case of Abd al-Aziz bin Fahd is equally interesting. Taken under the wing of the late Abdallah, he subsequently disappeared from public life and devoted himself to the life of a bon vivant. Though seemingly content to be tabloid fodder, he turned political in July 2017 when he published a series of tweets attacking the ruling family in the UAE. Pressured to stop agitating against the Emirati royals (close friends and allies of the Al Saud; the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Muhammad bin Zayid is considered something of a mentor to MbS), Abd al-Aziz refused and was apparently arrested in September. According to unconfirmed reports, he was aboard his yacht off the coast of Spain when he returned to Riyadh at the request of his uncle, King Salman. Later, he is said to have suffered depression and retreated to his palace (vanishing from public view due to mental health issues, as an official explanation, is a recurring theme - depression was the given explanation for Khalid bin Sultan's loss of tenure at Defense, and Muhammad bin Nayif, one-time crown prince and rival to MbS, was addicted to pain killers and thereby unstable, it was leaked). There is no real accounting for Abd al-Aziz' whereabouts; between reports of his alleged death in a gun battle and his reported palace confinement, visited only by close family members, little is known beyond gossip. Though he was fabulously rich, Abd al-Aziz in no way represented a threat to the evolving political order, and his arrest at the behest of bin Zayid is at least credible.

Multiple threads converge in the case studies. Shakedowns for cash, a genuine desire to end an entrenched culture of corruption, the elimination of political challenges, and even the settling of petty grievances all likely play a part. And yet, the arrests of activists, business leaders and religious scholars continues. While uncertainty abounds, MbS sits at the centre of it all - perhaps keeping his rivals off balance is the only real aim?

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