Source: Forbes<\/p>\n
Link:\u00a0https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/forbes\/welcome\/?toURL=https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/ellenrwald\/2017\/06\/21\/saudi-royal-shake-up-brings-uncertainty\/&refURL=https:\/\/www.google.com\/&referrer=https:\/\/www.google.com\/<\/p>\n
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Early on the morning of June 21, the Saudi Press Agency (the official news source of the Saudi government) announced a major shake-up in the royal line of succession.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, is the seventh son of Hissa Sudairi, a prominent wife of the country\u2019s founding king, Abdul Aziz. The Sudairi line has long been a powerful force in Saudi politics, and as early as the 1950s, there was talk of their oversized influence within the ruling family, al Saud.<\/p>\n Before\u00a0June 21<\/a>, the Crown Prince, meaning the first in line to the King, was Mohammad bin Nayef, the son of King Salman\u2019s older full-brother. The Deputy Crown Prince has been Mohammad bin Salman (often referred to as MBS), the King\u2019s 31-year-old son. MBS \u00a0is not the King\u2019s oldest son, and he has many older cousins. Now, the King has announced that MBS\u00a0will become Crown Prince, meaning all the remaining sons of Abdul Aziz and a large number of the third generation of al Saud will be skipped over in favor of the King\u2019s young son.<\/p>\n Until now, the Saudi royal family had determined who will be the king and the succession through a consultative union of brothers and heirs.\u00a0 King Abdullah, who reigned from 2005 until 2015, created a formal Allegiance Council to ensure a smooth transition with the approval of members of the royal family. The concept was to avoid isolating power within one small section of the family and to prevent a king from passing the throne to his own son without the family\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n MBS is only 31 years old and his father is over 80. If he becomes king soon, he will be the youngest ruler of Saudi Arabia since his grandfather began conquering the country. He is often seen as a reformer. MBS\u00a0is also in charge of the country\u2019s economic renewal and diversification program known as\u00a0Vision 2030<\/a>. He was the figure in front of the air attacks on\u00a0Houthi rebels<\/a>\u00a0in Yemen and is often associated with the plans for Saudi Aramco\u2019s expected\u00a0IPO<\/a>\u00a0in 2018. Because MBS has already been the face of Saudi activity for the past several years, it is unlikely that his elevation will lead to any changes in national policy. Oil investors should understand that MBS’s policy seems to be the oil policy Saudi Arabia has been pursuing.<\/p>\n No one yet knows how the rest of the royal family will react to this news or whether they were expecting this. Abdul Aziz\u2019s surviving sons\u2014MBS\u2019s uncles and half-uncles\u2014likely expected that they would never become kings, but no one knows what MBS\u2019s cousins will think of their young relative being placed above them by his father. It is\u00a0always possible that this is a temporary move and the King will place another heir as Crown Prince shortly and return his son to the status of Deputy Crown Prince.\u00a0\u00a0Today\u2019s event could lead to a period of uncertainty unseen within the royal family since 1965<\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0and the deposing of King Saud.<\/p>\n Update:\u00a0Al-Arabiya<\/a>\u00a0reported that MBS received 31 out of 34 votes in the succession council to become Crown Prince. Saudi media further reported several other\u00a0major changes<\/a>in government positions, including a new Interior Minister.<\/em><\/p>\n A video was released of former Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef pledging loyalty to his former deputy, now the Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Forbes Link:\u00a0https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/forbes\/welcome\/?toURL=https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/ellenrwald\/2017\/06\/21\/saudi-royal-shake-up-brings-uncertainty\/&refURL=https:\/\/www.google.com\/&referrer=https:\/\/www.google.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":708,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions\/708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}