Prince Mohammed, who was 37 years old at the end of August, is on the front line to succeed his father at the head of the first economy of the Arab world.
Le Monde With AFP
The very influential crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Ben Salman, was awarded new powers on Tuesday, September 27, by becoming Prime Minister of the Petroleum Kingdom – a post traditionally occupied by the King himself. Mohammed Ben Salman, who is the country’s de facto leader, was appointed “Prime Minister”, said a decree of King Salman, his father, published by the official Spa news agency. In Saudi Arabia, the king is head of state and president of the Council of Ministers.
With this appointment, the one nicknamed “MBS” consolidates his power, after a return to the front of the international scene of the Saudi kingdom isolated diplomatically since the assassination, in 2018, of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi – a critic from Riyadh – to the consulate of his country in Istanbul (Turkey).
Mohammed Ben Salman was previously Vice-Prime Minister under his father, King Salman, as well as Minister of Defense. He was replaced as Minister of Defense by his younger brother, Khaled Ben Salman, who was previously vice-minister of defense, according to the same source. Interior, foreign and energy ministries have not been affected by government reshuffle, according to the royal decree.
de facto leader
Prince Mohammed, who was 37 years old on August 31, is on the front line to succeed his father at the head of the first economy in the Arab world. He should, by far, become the youngest of the Saudi dynasty to access the throne after the death of his father, aged and weakened. In recent years, growing rumors have been circulating on the sovereign’s state of health, 86, which has been hospitalized twice this year, most recently in May.
Since he was appointed Crown Prince, in 2017, MBS de facto de facto Saudi Arabia. He has shaken up a sluggish country with all -out reforms while brutally repressing the opposition. But he is an essential internationally interlocutor.
Before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, in February, the Saudi kingdom – and the crown prince in particular – sought to overcome the diplomatic isolation imposed by most Western countries after the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi . After his election, the American president, Joe Biden, had even declassified a report concluding that MBS had “validated” this assassination, which the Saudi authorities have always denied.
But since the Russian invasion and the surge in energy prices, Joe Biden, the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as well as other Western leaders went to the kingdom, one of the first Oil exporters in the world, to try to convince Riyadh to pump more crude.
a precedent
The Saudi announcement on Tuesday also intervened after mediation of MBS in the Liberation by Russia and the transfer, on September 21, in Saudi Arabia of ten prisoners of war, including five British and two Americans.
Name the Prime Minister Crown Prince is an unusual, but not unprecedented decision. In the 1950s, the Crown Prince Fayçal became Prime Minister, which finally led to a power struggle having led, several years later, to the abdication of the Saud King of the time. This scenario is different, because it is a question of formalizing a situation of fact, “said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst close to the government.