Saudi Arabia’s succession mystery: who comes after MBS?
Prince Mohammed is all but assured to become monarch, but his rapid ascent has upended the kingdom’s royal hierarchy
Donald Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia last month bore all the pomp and pageantry expected of a state visit to the kingdom, with horse-mounted guards of honour and lavish banquets in opulent palaces.
One person, however, was notably absent: King Salman himself. With the frail 89-year-old rarely seen in public, it was his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who hosted the US president at grandiose development projects and a regional summit in the Saudi capital.
The trip was affirmation, were it needed, of Prince Mohammed’s unrivalled leadership of the kingdom. Eight years after his dramatic rise upended decades of Saudi tradition, the 39-year-old is virtually assured to take the throne when his father dies.
Instead the real point of uncertainty — one so sensitive it is only whispered about in the autocratic state — is the question of who might be in line to succeed MBS, as he is colloquially known, should anything befall him.
MBS’s ascent has brought about one of the rare moments, since the modern Saudi state was formed in 1932 by his grandfather King Abdulaziz, in which there is no clear succession order. No deputy crown prince, the natural successor to the heir apparent, nor deputy prime minister has been appointed.
Given his age, MBS could rule for decades. But the lack of a successor has created “key-man risk,” said David Rundell, a former US chief of mission in Saudi Arabia, referring to MBS’s centralised leadership and his role spearheading a period of dramatic — but incomplete — social and economic reforms under his Vision 2030 plan that have shaken up the conservative nation.
“There’s one guy who’s in charge, and it’s not clear what would happen if he departs,” said Rundell, author of Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads. “Not only have you got to find a new guy to sit on the throne, you’ve got to find a guy to continue what’s going on, and that’s a potential problem.”
However, Bernard Haykel, professor of near eastern studies at Princeton University, said that were MBS to become king, he could announce the crown prince on the same day or soon after, “which I think is in the plan”.
“It’s something he would have discussed with key members of the royal family,” said Haykel. “Why he hasn’t announced it isn’t clear. There is a degree of uncertainty about who would become crown prince, but it’s not a source of structural instability.”
It is assumed the successor would have to be a direct descendant of Abdulaziz, who had at least 36 sons. But only a few are thought to have a viable path to the crown.
When Saudis speculate whom MBS, who is believed to have three young sons and two daughters, might choose, some point to his younger brother Prince Khalid, the 37-year-old defence minister.
But as it stands, Prince Khalid cannot be named crown prince because the Saudi Basic Law of Governance, which serves as the constitution, stipulates that the king and crown prince cannot come from the same branch of Abdulaziz’s descendants.
The king has the power to amend the law, but succession, in theory, has to be approved by a council of senior royals.
Other names in the frame include Prince Turki bin Mohammed bin Fahd, a grandson of King Fahd. Considered a frontrunner by Saudi watchers, he is a minister of state and royal court adviser who manages Riyadh’s relations with its Gulf neighbours.
Another is Prince Abdullah bin Bandar, the minister of the powerful National Guard, although he comes from a less prominent branch as his father, another son of Abdulaziz, never held a senior post.
“Many people are worried about this issue,” one Saudi, who has discussed the question of succession with friends, said. “After him, what?”
The intrigue over succession is an example of how Saudi traditions have constantly been tested since King Salman ascended to the throne a decade ago and rapidly promoted MBS, who is also prime minister.
Another expert on Saudi Arabia, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the lack of a successor was a “curious blindness in his [MBS’s] political structure,” adding that it was “always a strength of the strongest Saudi rulers that they had brothers and cousins who were their lieutenants”.
“Succession isn’t just a question of the future, it’s a very important part of your influence in the present day,” the expert said. “No matter how talented or powerful you may be, the firmest of rulers . . . put in place a deputy to take over. It’s the essence of the family system.”
For more than six decades after King Abdulaziz’s death in 1953, the crown was passed from one of his ageing sons to the next. Crown princes sometimes change mid-reign — two died in office, one abdicated, and two more were forced to step down — and there was often palace intrigue about who was rising and who was falling.
But shortly after King Salman — among the last of Abdulaziz’s surviving sons — took power in 2015, he broke with tradition and moved to a younger generation by making his nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef the crown prince.
MBN, as he is known, turned out to be a stop gap for Prince Mohammed, who was already viewed as the rising force in the kingdom and abruptly replaced him as heir apparent in 2017, aged just 31, in what critics described as a palace coup.
Potential royal rivals were long ago muzzled — MBN has been under palace arrest for at least five years. With the crucial political cover provided by his father, long the family disciplinarian, MBS set about consolidating his grip and centralising power around his rule.
He has been rehabilitated internationally after surviving his gravest crisis — the opprobrium triggered by the brutal 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul.
And even his critics acknowledge that he enjoys widespread support within the kingdom for the period of transformation he has spearheaded.
“It’s in [MBS’s] immediate political interest not to pick somebody,” Rundell said. “And I don’t think he’s somebody who wants a partner. He calls all the shots.”
Haykel said what the succession issue “tells you is that the monarch is truly absolute, and can pay lip service to the system in place and ultimately choose who he wants regardless”.
“This is a royal court in the Shakespearean sense. A royal court full of rumours and intrigue.”