A Future Jordan - نحن الأردن

Cleaning up Jordan's musty politics - IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE IN JORDAN

Cleaning up Jordan's musty politics
By Rana Sabbagh-Gargour Saturday, April 09, 2005

Half-hearted measures, and hesitant policies of the past, might have helped Jordan buy time and win Western support, but it did not consolidate the pioneering process of political reform, begun in 1989, when the rest of the Arab region was under despot rulers.

Now, Jordan needs to ensure domestic peace against rising poverty and unemployment, and brace for Washington's new approach that seems to promote rapid social and political change across the Arab world, without regard for internal stability.

The latest speed and direction of change, has left many in a state of shock and awe. In less than four days, the king re-organized the government, and staged a mini revolution at the Royal Court, his own backyard.

And he set a clear agenda for where he wants Jordan to go: accelerate bold comprehensive reform, to complement economic modernization that has already taken firm hold in the kingdom, ever since he took over in 1999. Jordan needs to regain its comparative advantages in a transforming region.

The choice of new faces and names to lead the change, was unconventional, and daring. Adnan Badran, 69, a centrist U.S.-educated university academic, who knows no fear, and hails from a prominent family of East Bank politicians, was named prime minister. The overall line-up is dominated by young and old reformist figures, even though some of the names have failed to convince some Jordanians that the government will deliver.

Marwan Moasher, a daring 48-year-old liberal politician, and former deputy prime minister and ambassador to Washington, became Royal Court minister, the first member of the minority Arab Christian community to ever fill such a sensitive seat in the modern history of Jordan. From there, he will continue to head a committee drafting the National Agenda: a road map that will set the course for the country's development on all domestic fronts for the next 10 years. Goals will have timetables, and will be tied to future budgets, to ensure execution.

Both top men are well respected abroad, and share a record of conviction, diligence and integrity that speaks for itself. These characteristics are alarming for the country's powerful, tribal-dominated, and conservative power structure: a cocktail of influential politicians, an entrenched bureaucracy, and a strong security apparatus.

Beneath the surface, the latest pre-emptive strikes reflect growing anxiety and concern. The King, a pragmatist who belongs to the younger generation of Arab rulers who took over in the past five years, wants to ensure Jordan's survival in a turbulent U.S.-led world.

After a working visit to Washington ten days ago, the king, the United States' staunchest Arab ally, was alarmed by what he heard from President George W. Bush, his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others.

Even Arab reformists share the king's worry, now that Washington has made it clear that U.S. policy in the Middle East, that has traditionally given priority to the stability of cooperative regimes such as those in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, while turning a blind eye to the way those governments treat their peoples, will no longer work. The status quo they have enjoyed for decades, was quickly changing.

U.S. decision makers are now arguing that political violence, and hostility to Washington in the region, are the result of internal repression and corruption, rather than U.S. policies in the Arab-Israeli conflict, in Iraq and the global "war on terror," all main cause for Arab grievances. Iraq and Afghanistan, are being touted as models for change, at a time when many Arabs see such rapid and unchecked transformation in the region's closed societies as a recipe for chaos, for collapse of state and society, and for inviting religious extremists to come to power since they remain the only organized structure in their political cultures.

It looks like "arc of instability," or "constructive instability," may now actually be the goal of U.S. policy in the region, rather than its diagnosis of an existing problem.

Jordan's teetering process of political reform also got negative reviews during the visit, embarrassing many royal advisers, especially those who insisted that Jordan could afford to pursue double language, and contrasting policies: one for local consumption, and one for the foreign audience. At one point, the king had to ask Moasher to take the first flight out of Amman and come to Washington, to give Rice a full briefing on Jordan's national agenda.

Several administration officials, congressmen, journalists and leading human rights watchdogs, who once hailed Jordan's pioneering political moves, were critical over the spate of regressing freedoms. They signaled out the crackdown on the Muslim-led opposition, the muzzling of the media, and plans to curb the power of professional associations - the only active opposition toward U.S. policies, and Jordan's controversial 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

They urged him to make sure that democracy continues to advance in Jordan, which they had long praised as a role model for the region. And to his credit, several human rights groups praised him for being the only Arab leader to visit them, and to listen to their critical views.

Back home, popular displeasure was also growing over the slow pace of political change, started by past governments, amid rising complaints over increasing corruption and nepotism, and lack of a solid system of checks and balances. The security was becoming more powerful, and the government was getting weaker and weaker.

For now, the latest changes, have generated a note of optimism.

But the new government has to move fast to live up to the expectations of both king and nation, and to re-orient Jordan's foreign policy, seen as heavily titled in favor of Washington and Israel, at the expense of the Arab world. Badran also needs to tackle a thorny issue left behind by the past government - a draft law to regulate professional associations that has triggered outrage in Jordan and abroad. And he needs to come up with a viable electoral law, and a legislation on political parties.

But a window of opportunity exists, and the time for gradual change has never been so opportune.

Rana Sabbagh-Gargour is a columnist, journalist, and former editor in chief of The Jordan Times. She wrote this commentary for The Daily Star.

posted by Ashraf Zeitoon @ 11:36 PM