-Prince Mohammed becomes formal head of Saudi government
-Saudi King traditionally also holds title of Prime Minister
DM Monitoring
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s 86-year-old king appointed his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), to replace him as Prime Minister, continuing a gradual transfer of power in the world’s largest oil exporter.
Already de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, the appointment formalizes Prince Mohammed as leader of the kingdom’s government. Known by his initials MBS, the crown prince, 37, already oversaw many of Saudi Arabia’s major portfolios, including oil, defense, economic policy and internal security — while his father King Salman bin Abdulaziz remains head of state.
The royal decree on Tuesday did not give a reason for the move. The king will continue to chair cabinet meetings he attends, state-run news agency SPA said. The king spent a week in hospital in May for medical examinations and treatments, SPA reported at the time. A separate statement named one of the king’s other sons, Prince Khalid Bin Salman, to defence minister and reaffirmed all the other senior ministers in their posts.
Heir to the throne since pushing aside an older cousin in 2017, MBS has steadily concentrated authority in his hands, detaining potential opponents and overturning the decades-old tradition of balancing power between branches of the royal family.
That means that moving MBS to the position of prime minister is unlikely to be a precursor to any major policy shifts, said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “This move codifies the status quo, in which he is driving the ministers’ agendas and coordinating between them,” Alterman said. “It may also have an international aspect in formally making him head of government, rather than a head of state-in-waiting.”
Prince Mohammed has pushed forward with a sweeping economic transition program in the Group of 20 nation. Earlier this year, he hosted US President Joe Biden in the kingdom, turning the page on years of frictions over the killing of Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018 by Saudi agents. Not since the reign of the country’s founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud, has so much power been concentrated in one man’s hands in Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman isn’t king, yet. But the royal essentially runs the country for his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, who is 86.
The prince leapfrogged a generation of older uncles and cousins to become heir to the throne in one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies. He’s overseen changes that have shaken the kingdom to its core, loosening the religious restrictions that shaped the conservative Islamic society for decades.
He’s also attempted to reduce the crude exporter’s dependence on oil and redefine its place in the world — pushing for development in new sectors like tourism — while increasing political repression. His supporters say his bold ambition and iron fist is what’s needed to salvage an unsustainable economy. His critics say he’s dictatorial, power-hungry and reckless.
When Joe Biden took office as US president in 2021, after calling Saudi Arabia a “pariah” during his campaign, he avoided dealing with Prince Mohammed, often dubbed MBS. The insistence by Biden’s administration that the president would only engage with his “counterpart,” King Salman, was perceived as insulting and counterproductive in Saudi Arabia, particularly given MBS’s all-encompassing role and the strong probability that he’ll eventually become king.
