He then waxed eloquent in praise of King Abdullah who, he said, was very concerned about the well-being of his subjects. Such statements by the usually reticent Arab royal families hint at something serious in the offing, and this time the royal house had to come out with a solid statement of solidarity, because the rumour-mongering mills in Riyadh have been churning out more rumours in recent months than the Saudi oil rigs drill out crude oil.

Prince Sultan definitely has a point, since in Saudi Arabia the last transfer of succession between two different branches of the Al-Saud family had been smooth, unlike a very similar transfer in Kuwait where palace intrigue between the rival branches dethroned the Crown Prince Saad al Salem al Sabah after just nine days of rule.

In the not too distant past, the Emir of Sharjah, one of the seven Emirates of the UAE, was replaced by his brother in a palace coup, but gave up his claim only after the intervention of neighbouring rulers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, in return for being recognised as the Crown Prince.

The statement by the Saudi Crown Prince Sultan, however, conceals more than it reveals. In fact, the Sultan himself is said to have narrowly survived assassination attempt in the days following the death of late King Fahd, which, if cafe house discussions in Riyadh and Jeddah are to be lent any credence, had been kept secret for 21 days, while the royal family debated the succession issues.

The Arab monarchs are so afraid of succession because the death of a ruler shatters the status quo and all the competing interests within the ruling elite start nudging each other in order to retain the entrenched interests in the new dispensation. Hence, the kings (like Morocco and Jordan) and the presidents (Syria and Azerbaijan) of the Middle East usually prefer their own sons to succeed them, so that the succession issue gets buried for another few decades. Not so in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and UAE, where succession may involve brothers, who may be only a little younger than the reigning monarchs.

Thus, the new Saudi king is an octogenarian and so are some of the senior princes in the succession line. The succession issue in the oil-rich kingdom may now come up quite frequently in the years to come. Each succession opens up issues of distribution of wealth and

power, and it is not rocket science to guess that the claimants are outgrowing the available spoils, both in wealth and power.

The founder of the present Saudi dynasty, Abdul Aziz Ibne Saud, sired 36 sons and even more daughters. His eldest son, King Saud bin Abdul Aziz fathered 107 children; there are wild speculations about the number of wives and sons of his next three brothers, King Faisal, King Khalid and King Fahd. The present King Abdullah is believed to have 14 sons and 20 daughters.

The number of members of the royal family has grown from 7,000 in the late seventies to an estimated 30,000 now. Although the upper cap of 18% for the royal family from the nation's oil revenues, decreed by King Faisal over four decades ago, still holds, giving a guaranteed minimum income of $10,000 a month to even the remote princes does have economic costs for the Saudi nation.

Given the finiteness of wealth, the princes jostle for power but, unfortunately, there is a finite limit also to the prestigious positions that one can dole out. After all, the Minister of Defence is Prince Sultan for the last 44 years, the Interior Minister is Prince Nayef for 32 years and Prince Salman has been Governor of Riyadh for well over 45 years. Obviously these government positions are personal fiefdoms where the senior positions are reserved for the sons and loyalists of the incumbent. New entry is a no-no. Just 500 of the princes have government positions, and a mere 60 of them have those of any worthwhile importance.

There is no denying that such layers of influence have been proved gratifyingly coup-proof, yet it is also because of the astronomical rise in oil prices and the consequent windfall gains, that the Saudi dynasty has been saved from a coup from within, i.

e. by the disgruntled majority among the princes. Each prince who calls for reform is bought off.

Each country that calls for democratic reforms is also bought. For instance, the response to calls by the US administration for more openness was a whopping defence purchase order of $40 billion from that country. The warplanes, never needed in the first place, would rust in the sheds of an air base outside the town of Dammam, but the dynasty can rest assured that nobody from the US Senate would point a finger at their democratic credentials.

The Saudis do the same with hostile media, of which there were quite a few within Saudi Arabia and abroad. The Saudi press has gone through phases of daring and cowardice, depending upon the mood of the government. Within the country the press can be repressed. Outside the country the princes or loyalists would buy off any paper that bares its teeth. The Saudis bought the Assharq al Awsat and the Al Hayat, both London-based Arabic daily newspapers, as well as four of the five Arabic television channels within the region to ensure that nobody writes against them.

Yet the times are changing, the totally nominated Saudi "consultative" parliament, or Shura, as it is known, has refused to bow to the wishes of the rulers. The elected segment in the Saudi political system made its debut when, after dilly-dallying for one year after the first ever direct elections for the local councils in some Saudi cities, the government published the results and the councils came into existence. Public exposure of scandals by the print and electronic media cannot be hushed up. The role of the once mighty ulema is giving way to greater regard to the opinions of the general public as well as the members of parliament, albeit appointed ones. The textbooks that, until recently, had suggested that a good way to show love for God was to treat the infidels (non-Muslims) with contempt, have been revised and moderated.

The reign of the new King Abdullah has had a propitious start when he made the little observed national day as an annual public holiday (a move decried by radical clerics as a move towards secularism), and abolished the century old custom of kissing the hands of the monarch as a mark of respect.

King Abdullah, much like King Faisal, who ruled three decades ago, is a thorough reformist. He too has his limitations, as his humiliating retreat from several of his reform initiatives, even after 1995 when he became the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, when Fahd was incapacitated, has amply shown.

It may take time for women to start driving in Riyadh. There has to be an elected office of Prime Minister responsible to the elected Shura, which is on the cards anyway, and the economically and academically inefficient system of segregation between the sexes in the university classrooms has to be done away with; but all of them are questions of when, not if.

Saad S Khan is the Middle East Editor of Cambridge Review of International Affairs and a widely read analyst on politics, governance, and human rights in the Muslim world.