RARELY has one of Saudi Arabia’s ageing rulers moved so nimbly. No sooner had King Salman taken the crown on January 23rd after the death of his half-brother, Abdullah, than he immediately settled one of the most pressing questions of his rule: who would be the next king and, crucially, who would be the king after that. “The king did 90% of his job in just one day!” jokes one Saudi.The problem of the succession has long unsettled the Saudi monarchy. Since the death of the modern dynasty’s founder, Abdel Aziz bin Saud, the crown has passed from one of his many sons to the next. But they are dead or ageing. Salman, the sixth sibling, is already 79. Sooner or later, power would have to be handed to the next generation, but who in the proliferation of princes would be worthy? Salman decided that after Muqrin, the youngest of his half-brothers who had been appointed second-in-line by Abdullah, the crown would pass to his nephew, Muhammad bin Nayef, the minister of the interior, regarded as a competent campaigner against jihadists in the kingdom. In 2009 al-Qaeda tried to kill him when a militant was granted a private audience with the prince and detonated a bomb in his...
From The Economist: Middle East and Africa
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