The appointment of Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is an important re-affirmation of the Saudi leadership’s desire to seek a younger and more dynamic direction for the conservative country. Saudi Arabia is the Gulf’s largest population and economy, and over the decades has tried several routes to find the internal vision to seek the necessary openings to keep pace with new technologies and the pressures of the global economy. This changed when King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud appointed Prince Mohammad to be Deputy Crown Prince and made him head of the important Economic Council, which oversees a range of ministries that manage the economy. Prince Mohammad then took a dramatic step when he wrote and started to implement Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and the related National Transformation Plan, which is designed to diversify the Saudi economy away from energy over the next decade, but also opens up Saudi Arabia’s over-protective bureaucracy.
Prince Mohammad tackled this task with flair and courage, challenging his colleagues in government to welcome change and move forward. It is a tribute to his success that the Saudi government machinery has been willing to meet this challenge. The significant recent shifts in Saudi business life and society in general have been in large part due to Prince Mohammad’s dynamism in driving the process forward. Prince Mohammad has been Saudi Arabia’s Defence Minister and part of the important Political and Security Council, where he played an important role in mobilising Saudi Arabia’s lead of the coalition supporting the legitimate government in Yemen and fighting Al Houthi rebels. This remains one of the few times that the Gulf states have taken a major military step without international allies in order to manage their own affairs within the region.
It was significant that Prince Mohammad’s promotion was done without bitterness or confusion as exemplified by his very graceful tribute to the outgoing Prince Mohammad Bin Nayef, who had been Crown Prince and Minister of Interior, and has now been relieved of those positions. In the early 2000s, Prince Mohammad Bin Nayef had major success in eliminating radical infiltration into society as Saudi Arabia’s head of counter-terrorism, and he ended his time in public service with a warm tribute to the new Crown Prince.
With certainty over the succession, Saudi Arabia has clarity over its priorities to achieve the necessary transformation that its society needs.
