DOING business in Saudi Arabia has long involved accepting a trade-off between stability and sclerosis. Although power-sharing among the ruling family has kept the kingdom united, rule by elderly monarchs and a corrupt system of cronyism, or wasta, has made change agonisingly slow.
Last weekend’s purge of princes, officials, billionaires and businessmen by King Salman and his 32-year-old son and crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, tears the old rulebook to shreds. Some businessmen welcomed it, hoping that a reduction in graft and cronyism will create space for young entrepreneurs. “This is the closest thing in the Middle East to glasnost,” says Sam Blatteis, a former head of public policy in the Persian Gulf for Google.
But others drew wary parallels with the assault by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, on oligarchs for political ends. Above all, they expressed concern that it would make the prince the sole arbiter of important economic transactions in the kingdom,...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2m65XzP
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