King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.They are back: the appointment of Muhammad bin Nayef and Muhammad bin Salman as crown prince and deputy heir to the throne indeed formalizes the ascent to power of the grandsons of the kingdom’s founder, Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud. But focusing on this generational shift is missing the point of the latest round of royal musical chairs in Saudi Arabia.
Giving the second and third highest offices to the sons of late Crown Prince Nayef and current King Salman entrenches the Sudairi branch of the royal family once again at the centre of power, thus further dismantling former King Abdullah's measures to curb the influence of a group of princes that have gone virtually unchallenged since 1975.
After the assassination of King Faisal and during the reign of King Khalid, the future King Fahd and his six full brothers, known as the ‘Sudairi Seven’ (named after the clan of their mother), built an unassailable fortress of power within the royal family and the kingdom-at-large by taking control of the office of crown prince, the ministries of interior and defence, as well as several key provinces. In his final years as king, Abdullah used the successive demise of Crown Princes Sultan and Nayef to insert his own sons, and members of other branches of the royal family, in key positions in order to offset Sudairi power. This led to the removal of the sons of the late King Fahd and Prince Sultan from key government posts.
The unprecedented retirement 'at his own request' of the current king's half-brother, Crown Prince Muqrin, completes a process set in motion on the very day Salman took the throne in January 2015. With lightning speed most of the sons of King Abdullah and other loyalists were dismissed from their posts, while the energetic Muhammad bin Nayef and Muhammad bin Salman quickly overshadowed the ailing new monarch in running the daily administration of government.
Although they are younger and more hands-on, don't expect any structural changes or liberalisation in the way the Sudairi branch of the Al Saud runs what they consider 'their country'. Aside from Uncle Muqrin, other victims of the latest move include their cousins from the only other branch of the royal family that seemed to have – or rather had – the potential of competing with the Sudairis: the sons of King Faisal.
