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Analysts said the goal of the purge went beyond corruption and aimed to remove potential opposition to Prince Mohammed as he pushes an ambitious and controversial reform agenda.
In September he announced that a ban on women driving would be lifted and he is trying to break decades of conservative tradition by promoting public entertainment and visits by foreign tourists.
In economic policy, he has slashed state spending in some areas and plans a big sale of state assets.
“The most recent crackdown breaks with the tradition of consensus within the ruling family whose secretive inner workings are equivalent to those of the Kremlin at the time of the Soviet Union,” wrote James Dorsey, a senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“Prince Mohammed, rather than forging alliances, is extending his iron grip to the ruling family, the military, and the National Guard to counter what appears to be more widespread opposition within the family as well as the military to his reforms and the Yemen war,” Dorsey said.
An economist at a big Gulf bank, who declined to be named because of political sensitivities, said nobody in Saudi Arabia believed corruption was at the root of the purge.
“It’s about consolidating power and frustration that reforms haven’t been happening fast enough,” the economist said.
The round-up sets alarm bells ringing across the region and beyond. It also recalls the palace coup in June through which Mohammad bin Salman ousted his elder cousin, Mohammad bin Nayef, as heir to the throne and interior minister.
MbS, as he is known, was widely expected to follow through by, at the least, removing Prince Miteb bin Abdallah from leadership of the National Guard, a pivotal power-base rooted in the kingdom’s tribes.
Other detainees include former finance minister Ibrahim al-Assaf, a board member of national oil giant Saudi Aramco; economy minister Adel Fakieh, who once played a major role in drafting reforms; former Riyadh governor Prince Turki bin Abdullah and Khalid al-Tuwaijiri, who headed the Royal Court under the late King Abdullah.
Prince Alwaleed is one of Saudi Arabia’s best-known international businessmen as an investor in firms such as Citigroup and Twitter.
Bakr bin Laden, chairman of the big Saudi Binladin construction group, and Alwaleed al-Ibrahim, owner of the MBC television network, were also detained.
Some detainees were believed to be held at the opulent Ritz-Carlton hotel in the diplomatic quarter of Riyadh, sources in contact with the government told Reuters. The hotel and an adjacent facility were the site of an international conference promoting Saudi Arabia as an investment destination last month.
– https://www.cnbc.com/
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