The new King of Saudi, King Salman, who is he?

                                    

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah died early yesterday at the age of 90 and his brother Salman became king.

King Salman has also now named his half-brother Muqrin as his crown prince and heir. King Salman Abdulaziz Al Saud, the late King Abdullah's brother, was born  on December 31, 1935, was also Defense Minister and has been chairing cabinet meetings for several months and handling almost all foreign travel responsibilities for the monarchy since he became the heir in 2012. He has visited China, Japan, India, Pakistan, the Maldives and France since becoming Crown Prince after the death of his predecessor Prince Nayif. He has hosted a series of Saudi allies like Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who paid their last respects quietly to  the late Saudi King, Abdullah last week.

Before becoming Crown Prince, Salman was governor of Riyadh province for 48 years. When he became governor in 1963, Riyadh had 200,000 inhabitants; today, it has more than seven million. King Salman presided over this remarkable transformation with a record for good governance and a lack of corruption. Since most of the Royal princes and princesses live in Riyadh, he was also the family sheriff, ensuring any transgressions were dealt with smoothly and quietly with no publicity. He knows where all the bodies are hidden.

King Salman also oversaw the collection of private funds to support the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, working very closely with the Kingdom’s Wahhabi clerical establishment. In the early years of the war, before the U.S. and the Kingdom ramped up their secret financial support for the anti-Soviet insurgency, this private Saudi funding was critical to the war effort. At the war’s peak, Salman was providing $25 million a month to the mujaheddin. He was also active in raising money for the Bosnian Muslims in the war with Serbia.

Salman’s sons include the first Muslim astronaut, Prince Sultan and the governor of Medinah, Prince Faysal. Another son, Prince Khaled, is a fighter pilot in the Royal Saudi Air Force and led the first RSAF mission against Islamic State targets in Syria last year. The family controls much of the Saudi media. All will now be up-and-comers.

Salman oversaw the collection of private funds to support the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, working very closely with the Kingdom's Wahhabi clerical establishmen.
Salman has his own health issues and has had a stroke. (Persistent rumors of dementia are denied by the palace.) His successor was announced in February 2013 to ensure continuity. Second Deputy Prime Minister Prince Muqrin, now the Crown Prince, was born September 15, 1945 and was educated at the Royal Air Force College in England before becoming a pilot in the Royal Saudi Air Force. Later he was governor of Medinah province and then head of Saudi intelligence.

Abdallah, Salman and Muqrin are sons of the modern Kingdom’s founder, Abdelaziz Ibn Saud, who had 44 recognized sons. The survivors and their heirs constitute the Allegiance Council, which Abdallah created in 2007 to help choose the line of succession. In practice it has only ratified the Kings decisions after the fact.

Muqrin is widely believed to be the last capable son of Ibn Saud. So now that Muqrin has ascended to the Crown Prince position the Kingdom will face the unprecedented challenge of picking a next in line from the grandsons of Ibn Saud. That will raise questions of legitimacy not faced in the last century of Saudi rule.

Abdullah has been the de facto ruler of the Kingdom since King Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995; he became King a decade later when Fahd passed away. A progressive reformer by Saudi standards, Abdullah gave the Kingdom 20 years of stability. Salman is likely to provide continuity. The House of Saud values family collegiality and harmony highly. The two previous Saudi Kingdoms in the 18th and 19th centuries were wracked by family internal squabbles which their foreign enemies exploited. Eleven of 14 successions were contested and the Saudis ended up in exile in Kuwait until Ibn Saud created the modern kingdom in 1902.


With the Arab world facing its worst crisis in decades, the royals will want to present an image of stability and strength. This is especially true with the collapse of the pro-Saudi government in Yemen, which will be Salman’s first crisis.

Culled from the Daily Beast


Picture: Michael Reynolds-EPA