clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Prominent Saudi prince causes Twitter storm

January 26, 2015 at 5:54 pm

Billionaire Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin-Talal announced allegiance to his uncles as king and crown princes, but did not announce allegiance to his cousin as interior minister and deputy crown prince.

On Twitter, Bin-Talal tweeted: “I gave adherence to ‘my father’ Salman bin Abdul-Aziz as a King and to ‘my father’ Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz as a Crown Prince and congratulated ‘my brother’ prince Mohamed bin-Nayef.”

The tweet was re-tweeted more than 10,000 times and it aroused several responses from Saudis and other observers as Bin-Talal, like his father, was exempted of any senior position similar to the other members of the royal family.

Some twitter members have accused him of seeking to divide the royal family because his name was not mentioned in the new nominations.

No prominent Saudis have commented on this; however London based Saudi dissident Mohamed al-Mas’ari responded to Bin-Talal’s tweets.

He tweeted: “O God, he is a liar. He gave allegiance just to escape questioning. Do you remember – Walid –  your dialogue with [Mu’amar] al-Gadhafi? The recording is there but I have not enough money to buy it from the remnants of the Libyan regime.”

Some observers believe Bin-Talal’s tweets hint to future differences among the grandsons of late King Abdul-Aziz. Some of them have been chosen for senior positions and others have been excluded.

However, other observers have noted that the political succession has taken place smoothly and do not believe such sole objections will not have an effect.