A Future Jordan - نحن الأردن

On the mend - Jordan Times Editorial on the New Cabinet

On the mend
Editorial
Friday-Saturday, April 8-9, 2005

One strength of the make-up of the Cabinet of new Prime Minister Adnan Badran is that the beefed-up private sector presence brings new key players to the halls of policy making in the most critical arenas that are at once diverse and similar. Two new members to watch will be Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Suhair Al-Ali and Minister of Industry and Trade Sharif Zu'bi. Al-Ali brings years of experience in commercial banking with one of the world's largest financial institutions, Citigroup. But her interests in community and women's affairs, and her participation on various national committees and panels, adds the much needed element of appreciation of the country's development needs at the grassroots. Sharif Zu'bi comes with nearly 20 years of experience in civil and commercial law with specialization in government contracts, international trade, joint ventures, construction, foreign investment, privatization, banking and telecommunications. His extra-professional engagements include member of boards/directors at the Central Bank, Royal Jordanian Airlines PLC, and Jordan Micro Credit Company.

What Al-Ali and Zu'bi are able to accomplish will have a direct impact on the advancement of the Kingdom's socio-economic climate, provided they can alleviate poverty, reduce unemployment and create sustainable jobs. They will be greatly helped if education and women's empowerment stop running into anti-reformist obstacles.

The claim is that the Badran Cabinet is top heavy in reformists with the addition of pro-reform individuals and the return of like-minded ministers. Whether this Cabinet will be able to push through the necessary political, judicial, economic, social and public reforms is still to be seen.

Bassem Awadallah, who bowed out two months ago from the previous government has reemerged to take the influential post of minister of finance. His return is as confounding as was his departure, with the lack of transparency leading to the usual speculation. If the facts behind Awadallah's round-trip are ever made public, the episode still will have left an unsettling feeling.

The anticipated September launch of the National Agenda, which is to serve as the Kingdom's mission statement for the next decade, is still five months away. In the meantime, Jordan's neighbourhood fence-mending will be a priority.

The selection of the mild-mannered head of the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy, Farouq Qasrawi, as foreign affairs minister will serve that purpose in familiar, more accommodating Arab circles. On the fiercer international stage, where interests in the Middle East often clash, the pressure mounts — and that is where Qasrawi's experience in Germany and Japan may help.

Another mild-mannered choice, that of Awni Yarvas as interior minister, should work to assuage, if only temporarily, the associations which collided head-on with former Minister Samir Habashneh for several months over the permissible scope of their activities. With the controversial draft associations law now relegated to Parliament's Legal Committee, the parties to the issue will be given a respite in which they may hopefully reach a compromise.

On the home front, Parliament is in recess and a long hot summer lies ahead. In the five months leading up to the revealing of the National Agenda, citizens will expect some sort of tangible evidence that will demonstrate the intent of this new government to produce results.

posted by Ashraf Zeitoon @ 12:13 AM