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March 29
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Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says he’s cracking down on corruption. But the sweeping arrests of cabinet ministers and senior princes Saturday night looked to many astonished Arab observers like a bold but risky consolidation of power, analyst David Ignatius noted.

“He’s creating a new Saudi Arabia,” said one Saudi business leader contacted Sunday. 

“This is very risky,” the business leader said, because MBS is now challenging senior princes and religious conservatives simultaneously, The Washington Post reported.

He noted that the list of arrestees includes Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, the son of the previous king and the head of the Saudi national guard, traditionally a locus of tribal power. “The national guard was part of the balance among the royal family. He’s taken that balance out,” the Saudi executive noted. “He’s the goliath who can fight it all.”

MBS appears to be deliberately dismantling the traditional governance system in Saudi Arabia, which involved a slow, sometimes sclerotic process of consensus within the royal family. The young prince has instead seized executive power and wielded it aggressively to push his agenda.

MBS has chosen what’s likely to be a popular target with younger Saudis. MBS is betting he can mobilize these younger Saudis, hungry for a new kingdom, against the older princes. He’s hoping the religious establishment, too, will support a purge of the elite.

According to him, “while accompanied by the rhetoric of reform, this weekend’s purge resembles the approach of authoritarian regimes such as China. President Xi Jinping has used a similar anti-corruption theme to replace a generation of party and military leaders and to alter the collective leadership style adopted by recent Chinese rulers.”

Ignatius noted that MBS is emboldened by strong support from President Trump and his inner circle, who see him as a kindred disrupter of the status quo — at once a wealthy tycoon and a populist insurgent. 

“It was probably no accident that last month, Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, made a personal visit to Riyadh. The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy,” he noted. 

 

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