Succession in Saudi Arabia

SUCCESSION IN SAUDI ARABIA

The political stability in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula and the world 's leading oil exporter is of vital importance to the stability of the Middle Eastern region and global economic stability as well . This explains why subjects such as the succession to the Saudi Arabian throne have always been the focus of international attention and speculation . Since the proclamation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and unification of its territories in 1932 by its founder , King Abdul Aziz al-Saud (1876-1953

, the succession to the throne has been restricted to his sons and followed special rules based on traditional customs (Al-Badi , 2008

Issue of succession

Since Abdul 's death in 1953 , Saudi Arabia has had five kings : Saud (1953-1964 , Faisal (1964-1975 , Khalid (1975-1982 , Fahd (1982-2005 and Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz (2005-present (Kumaraswamy , 2005 Politically , the King of Saudi Arabia exercises unlimited powers and is the head of the Council of Ministers . He designates the Crown Prince who is Deputy Prime Minister and accedes to the throne after the King 's death . Since 1975 , the King also appointed the Second Deputy to the Prime Minister who became the next Crown Prince after the ascension of the previous one to the throne (Metz , 1992

The rules of succession existing until recently , however unclear they appeared , guaranteed a relatively smooth transition of power in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia . The problem is , however , that each new ruler has been older than the previous one . The current King Abdullah , for example , is now 84 or so years old and the current Crown Prince Sultan will be even older when (and due to his old age , if ) he succeeds to the Saudi Arabian throne . It becomes obvious that if succession continues to be restricted to the sons of King Abdul , new kings will rule the country for shorter time periods compared to their predecessors and in

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the foreseeable future successions of power will happen quite frequently (Kumaraswamy , 2005

Perhaps foreseeing this problem and wanting to protect the Kingdom from the forthcoming strife among the royal family consisting of more than 3 ,000 princes , King Fahd introduced in 1992 the first official decree aiming at the creation of a legal basis for the transfer of power in Saudi Arabia . Fahd 's decree reaffirmed that the country is a monarchy and set forth that the Kings were to be chosen not only from among King Abdul 's sons , but also from among his grandchildren . It confirmed that honor , honesty , and other high moral standards had to be regarded as a condition of allegiance . But Fahd 's decree did not provide any clear details as to who among hundreds of descendants of the founder 's children can be considered the most upright prince to succeed to the Saudi Arabian throne and through which procedures his own successor would have to be chosen so that his legitimacy would be acknowledged and family unity maintained (Al-Badi , 2008...