*Riyadh: *Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, who is set to visit Francenext week, has shaken up the ultraconservative oil superpower witheconomic, social and religious reforms since becoming crown prince.
The 32-year-old de facto ruler has overseen the most fundamentaltransformation in the modern history of the Gulf nation and sidelined allrivals after emerging as first-in-line last June.
Known by his initials MBS, the prince has pledged a “moderate” Saudi Arabiaas he seeks to get international investors on board with his grandiosevision to overhaul the kingdom’s oil-reliant economy.
He has taken on the powerful clerics who long dominated Saudi life andstruck out at the nation’s coddled elite with a dramatic purge of royals,ministers and business figures that saw hundreds detained in a probe overgraft worth $100 billion.
“We want to live a normal life. A life in which our religion translates totolerance, to our traditions of kindness,” he told international businessleaders at a conference in Riyadh last year.
“Seventy percent of the Saudi population is under 30, and honestly we willnot spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. Wewill destroy them today and at once.”
On the international stage, he has ratcheted up tensions in the Middle Eastby plunging the usually staid kingdom into the quagmire of regionalrivalries.
He has overseen a blistering military campaign in Yemen, ramped up astand-off with Shiite rival Iran and tried to bring Qatar to heel byisolating it.
*’Freed himself’*
Born on August 31, 1985, Prince Mohammed graduated in law from Riyadh’sKing Saud University. The dark-bearded prince with a receding hairline isthe father of two boys and two girls.
In a dramatic announcement on June 5, he was named to replace his cousin,Mohammed bin Nayef, as heir to the Saudi throne. He had been second-in-linesince early 2015.
Prince Mohammed’s drive to create a “moderate” Saudi Arabia could befraught with risks, but so far he has managed to avoid triggering a publicbacklash from powerful conservatives.
In September 2017, a royal decree said women would be allowed to drive. Thekingdom has also lifted a public ban on cinemas and has encouragedmixed-gender celebrations — something unseen before.
The government last year set up an Islamic centre tasked with certifyingthe sayings of the Prophet Mohammed in a stated bid to curb extremist texts.
The authorities appear to have clipped the wings of the once-fearedreligious police — long accused of harassing the public with rigid Islamicmores — who have all but disappeared from big cities.
In tandem with reforms, Prince Mohammed has been shoring up power,culminating in the dramatic detention of some high-profile individualsafter he was named head of a new anti-corruption commission.
But the lightning accumulation of authority has sparked fears that PrinceMohammed might have upended the fine balance of powers in Saudi Arabia tooquickly and could end up sparking instability.
“He has freed himself to engage in ill-fated confrontations abroad thatdilute Saudi power, exposing the kingdom to greater military threats andscaring off investors,” wrote Federic Wehrey, a fellow at the CarnegieEndowment for International Peace.
In February, he oversaw a dramatic shake-up that saw top brass, includingthe chief of staff and heads of the ground forces and air defence, replacedlargely with younger leaders loyal to him, further consolidating hiscontrol within the military.
The prince is the architect of a wide-ranging plan dubbed “Vision 2030” tobring social and economic change to Saudi Arabia’s economy.
Among his most prominent positions have also been defence minister andchairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, whichcoordinates economic policy.
Mohammed is also overseeing plans to sell under five percent of state-ownedoil giant Aramco, the crown jewel of the Saudi economy, in what is expectedto be the world’s largest initial public offering. – APP /AFP