For the second straight year Saudi Arabia's King Fahd has failed to
represent his country at the annual Gulf Cooperation Council heads of
state summit, which was held earlier this month in Qatar. As in 1995,
Saudi interests at the summit were represented by Crown Prince Abdullah,
who in early 1996 replaced Fahd as acting monarch for a period of
several months while Fahd recovered from a debilitating stroke.
Among other things, the Fahd summit absence raises new questions
about his ability to continue to lead Saudi Arabia. The fact that he was
recently reported to have been extremely inattentive and unfocused
during a meeting with a key foreign leader only adds further urgency to
the Saudi leadership issue.
Breathing Room
Fortunately for Saudi Arabia, King Fahd's growing weakness comes at
a relatively propitious moment. This is because after several years of
dangerously truncated oil revenues, Saudi oil export sales in 1996
should hit about $48 billion, enough at any rate to prop up the liberal
social safety network upon which the Saudi regime's stability is
largely based. While predictions for 1997 oil revenues are not quite so
sanguine - world oil prices are expected to dip by several dollars per
barrel at least in late spring, as stocks in the West and Japan are
once again built up - they will almost certainly be sufficiently high to
allow Saudi Arabia's 15 million people to continue living in the
relatively gracious style to which they have happily become accustomed.
Among other things, this continuing prosperity would appear to give
Saudi Arabia a fairly comfortable breathing space in which to carry out
what is increasingly appearing to be its inevitable monarchical change.
Despite continuing official assertions that all is really well with King
Fahd, that change now seems likely to take place at some point over the
coming year. The most reasonable scenario is for Fahd to announce his
abdication, with Crown Prince Abdullah immediately taking his place.®
Sultan Demurs
King Fahd's slightly younger brother, Prince Sultan, who covets
the throne for himself, would not be happy with such an arrangement, if
only because his fairly advanced age (like Crown Prince Abdullah, he is
73), effectively restricts his chances of relieving the crown prince,
once he either abdicates or dies. Rather more likely is an arrangement
whereby Abdullah's rule would be directly followed by someone from the
next generation immediately taking over; Prince Salman perhaps, or
Prince Saud.
With all of this in mind Prince Sultan can now be expected to try
to prevail upon King Fahd to change the succession order, this in order
to take Crown Prince Abdullah directly out of the monarchical running.
Indeed, Sultan's not so discreet anti-Abdullah machinations earlier this
year may well have been one of the principal reasons why Fahd elected to
stay on after his stroke, this instead of abdicating in favor of
Abdullah, and risking a full blown succession crisis. Now however, with
Saudi Arabia once again on a relatively strong economic keel, King Fahd
may be far less willing to listen to Abdullah's blandishments.
Accordingly, his abdication is probably not so much a question of if,
but rather one of when.
The Quarterly Report on Saudi Arabia