WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia, which often confounds outsiders with its slow and opaque governance, has moved surprisingly quickly under King Salman, its new monarch, to streamline government and purge officials who were seen as underperformers.
The architect of the government shakeup has been Mohammed bin Salman, the king’s aggressive, Western-oriented, 34-year-old son, who has taken the positions of defense minister and chief of the royal court. He is said to have planned the succession moves carefully in the weeks before the death of King Abdullah on Jan. 23, and executed them quickly to check protests within the royal family.
The message, in simple terms, seems to be that the Saudi inner circle recognized that the kingdom was developing governance problems under its aging leadership and moved in a decisive, perhaps un-Saudi way to fix them.
The changes appear to deepen Saudi Arabia’s links with the U.S. and make it a more reliable security partner. One sign of continuity is that Adel al-Jubeir, who was King Abdullah’s trusted emissary in Washington, will remain as ambassador. Salman and his son seem to have balanced royal family equities enough to keep most princes happy, and to have forestalled dissent from any who aren’t.
By Saudi standards, the changes are sweeping. Mohammed bin Nayef, the 55-year-old interior minister and a close ally of the U.S., was installed as third in line to the throne, behind Crown Prince Muqrin, 69. This decision was ratified the day after Abdullah’s death by the consultative Allegiance Council.