Jordan's constitutional monarchy on holds
Jordan's constitutional monarchy on holdsJAMAL HALABY
Associated Press
Posted on Fri, Aug. 26, 2005
AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan's reform-minded, U.S.-educated monarch,
King Abdullah II, follows two separate lines when discussing the idea of surrendering some powers and moving his kingdom toward a European-style constitutional monarchy. On American talk shows, Abdullah has sounded at ease with fundamental change. But back home, he says the time is not yet ripe as Jordan faces new extremist pressures and attacks.The 43-year-old monarch enjoys broad support in his country - a rarity among Mideast leaders - and is seen in Washington as a bulwark against terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, as was his late father, King Hussein.
During a U.S. visit earlier this year, Abdullah told a television interviewer in his British-accented English that he was "absolutely" open to moving Jordan toward a constitutional monarchy.
Upon emerging from a White House meeting he was even more specific, saying the "crown can take a step back and the people can take a step forward."
That's the answer when he's abroad. But it's a different story at home, where Abdullah is also battling an underground militancy bent on killing him.
In a June debate in the nation's newspapers over amending Jordan's constitution to accommodate proposed changes in legal code, Abdullah put his foot down. "
There's no justification for amending the constitution at this stage. Any talk of constitutional amendment is a red line," the king said.
There is little question that Abdullah rules in a dangerous political neighborhood, where easing political and security controls could be fatal. Last Friday, militants allegedly linked to al-Qaida fired three rockets, one that barely missed U.S. warships anchored in the Red Sea port of Aqaba.
At least one of four other unfired missiles allegedly smuggled in from Iraq are believed to have targeted Abdullah's beachfront palace just west of the port.
A lot would be at stake were a Jordanian monarch to relinquish some powers. Under the Jordanian system, Hashemite rulers have reigned until death, were immune from prosecution, appointed the government leadership, could abolish laws at will, could dismiss the parliament and could rule by decree.
The newspaper debate on the constitution was not about basic reform of the Jordanian system, and government officials quickly suggested that Abdullah had not meant to signal a reversal of his desire to share power. They said he merely sought to put things in order before he steers his nation towards change.
One of the main challenges is Jordan's 30 splintered political parties, some based on tribal affiliations. Abdullah has said he wants those 30 merged into two or three so that lawmakers and, possibly Cabinet officials, could be elected on party banner instead of tribal links. Social, cultural and political legislation inherited from the days of martial law must also be revamped.
Toujan Faisal, a former lawmaker who was jailed for 100 days three years ago for accusing a former Cabinet of financial wrongdoing, said electing prime ministers is a good start for constitutional change.
"It will help consolidate the king's popularity, considering the democratic changes around us and the looming threat of militants in the region," she said.
However, political intrigue in neighboring Iraq and in Israel and the Palestinian territories - plus terror plots against Jordan - may have slowed down domestic reforms. Currently, there are at least 18 trials in the military court involving scores of militants - some linked to al-Qaida - who have plotted to kill Americans, Israelis or other foreigners, topple the king or destabilize his kingdom.
Nevertheless, Abdullah has pledged to press ahead with reforms introduced under his father in 1989. Those included the revival of a multiparty system, banned since a 1956 leftist coup attempt, and the ending of martial law, imposed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Since he took the throne in 1999, the king has allowed a relatively freer media, under laws that also advocate more freedom for women. In January, he unveiled plans to form elected councils that will oversee development across the desert kingdom, a move meant to give wider autonomy to outlying communities.
He also has promised
a 10-year "national agenda" that the Jordanian government says will overhaul all sectors, including political - a plan that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed in a June visit as strengthening "grass-roots democracy here in Jordan."
A new Cabinet of reformists was formed in April and has since allowed public protests banned by its predecessor. Still, critics say the moves have been barely enough.
"
The government may have eased off toward certain public activities, but it has failed to make any tangible steps to reflect its good intentions - especially with regards to the elections law," said lawmaker Ali Abu-Sukar.
A very Good article on a panel discussion with two of the clearest thinking, most articulate analysts in the Arab world
A sensible path to Arab modernity and freedoms
By Rami G. Khouri
Saturday, August 20, 2005
What's wrong with the Arabs? Why do so many Islamic societies spawn terrorists? Why are our societies so violent and unstable? What is needed to transform the societies of the Middle East, North Africa and west-central Asia into stable, prosperous countries?
These are the sorts of sweeping questions that many people within the Middle East ask every day, looking simultaneously at internal factors as well as external causes of our many excesses. It was heartening and instructive for me earlier this week to have the privilege of sharing in a panel discussion with two of the clearest thinking, most articulate analysts in the Arab world - George Corm and Clovis Maksoud, both Lebanese - as we discussed the impact of the last three Arab Human Development Reports published by the UN Development Program (UNDP).
The issues they raised and the analytical suggestions they made deserve a wider hearing beyond the
students and staff participating in a summer
course on conflict-resolution organized in Lebanon by UNDP and Lebanese
American University. I suspect their way of thinking correctly identifies the key challenges facing the Arab world, reflects the views of the vast majority of Arabs, and offers a practical, realistic route out of the Arab world's current dilemma of stagnation, frustration and confrontation.
Corm, a professor of economics at St Joseph
University in Beirut and a former Lebanese Cabinet minister, makes the point that
the Arab region undoubtedly needs real reform, but there is no consensus on the reasons for this. Is current and historical foreign interference the main problem, he asks? Domestic power distortions? Patriarchal social culture? Polarized societies fragmenting into smaller and smaller units based on ethnicity, religion and ideology? Hostility among Arab states and leaderships? A combination of these and other reasons explains
the burdensome, humiliating fact that the Arab region is the only part of the world where foreign armies today still regularly invade, occupy, and try to remake societies. More troubling is his observation that Arabs today face virtually the same challenge that confronted our societies around 150 years ago, in the late Ottoman period: why are Arab societies underdeveloped, and dominated by foreign influences, interests and forces?
Among the answers to his questions,
Corm mentions the devastating impact of the Arab rent economies that are not productive or creative, but live off "rent" derived from foreign payments or protection, or from oil and gas production. Rent economies make it impossible to develop liberal, democratic regimes, he says, and so must be replaced with job-creating, productive economies. Arab nationalists never sufficiently focused on the economic dimension of nationalism, independence and statehood, he says, and Arab intellectuals today spend too much time responding to Western accusations and focus too much on day-to-day politics. Instead, our intellectuals and activists should ignore Samuel Huntington, Bernard Lewis and others of their ilk, and spend more time building our culture and society. We should especially draw on the rich but neglected Arab tradition of thinkers who have sought in the past century to prod reform, modernity, prosperity and genuine national sovereignty anchored in dignity. The Arab people need and deserve a "second Nahda of Arab freedoms," he says, referring to the broad intellectual, cultural, political and religious movement in parts of the Arab world around 1880-1920 that has been called the Arab Awakening or Renaissance, al-Nahda in Arabic. Our own continuous quest for modernity and liberalism can be compatible with key religious and cultural values. He defined modernity as that which allows you to promote prosperity, compete globally, defend yourself militarily, and defend the overall integrity of your society from foreign domination.Maksoud, university professor, columnist, former Arab League ambassador and current director of the Center for the
Study of the Global South at American University in Washington, DC, approaches the same challenge through the eyes of the team that wrote the Arab Human Development Reports, of which he is a member.
"
The Arabs are a wealthy nation of poor people," he notes, who recklessly engage in either confrontation with the West or submission to it, with both options leading to self-destruction.
We need to find a way to reconcile the legality of the modern Arab state system with the legitimacy of the wider Arab national idea, he says. The Arab Human Development Report offers an action-oriented analysis that aims to spark a dialogue between the Arab citizen, civil society and the state authorities.One of our common weaknesses - very evident in Lebanon, he says - is that the individual Arab citizen does not have a direct relationship with his or her state except through the intermediation of ethnic, religious or tribal groups. The narrow identities and interests of sovereign states have come to dominate the two other important dimensions of people's lives in the Arab region - their rights as citizens of a state, and their sense of belonging to a larger Arab national identity of some sort.He says that "
the weakness of patrimonial Arab consciousness has given way to the strength of legal state sovereignty." Consequently, Arab countries wave their flags vigorously, advocating "Jordan first," "Lebanon first," "Syria first" and "Egypt first;" yet their citizens become increasingly angry with life conditions at home and the international double standards they suffer from Israel and the West. "Anger is an invitation to dialogue," he suggests, and one of the aims of the Arab Human Development Reports is to spark dialogue that can also plant the seeds of an Arab Renaissance.
George Corm brings the argument back to
the historical legacy of an Arab region that wants to change, reform and modernize, but has always resisted doing so under foreign pressure or threat. Totally adopting or rejecting Western reform agendas is not useful, he says, and instead we need to spur a genuine Arab reform agenda for modernity and freedoms that primarily builds on our own values, analyses, and priority goals. These are sensible and timely ideas, doubly significant because they are not unique or unusual; they reflect the richness of the debates that take place every day in homes, schools, coffee shops and offices throughout the Arab world. They also provide a powerful, appropriate antidote to the prevailing nonsense that we hear from some quarters in the West, especially the U.S., about clashes of civilization, the need for Islamic reformation, hatred of the West, the madrasa problem, or the inherent violence of Arab and Islamic culture.The matter is much simpler, and should not be muddled by tangential intellectual fantasies or the silliness of confused, angry small-town politicians from abroad: In the past century or so, citizenship and statehood in the Arab world have become mutually dysfunctional enterprises, due to a combination of local and foreign factors that must be treated simultaneously.
Rami G. Khouri writes a regular commentary for The Daily Star.
Great Cartoon by hajjaj on teh Aqaba Attacks - The Cartoon is unpublished....
Analysis / Another Al-Qaida base of operations... JORDAN
Analysis / Another Al-Qaida base of operations
By
Zvi Bar'elHA’ARETZ DAILY
Although a group calling itself Abdullah Azzam Brigades, apparently linked to Al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for Friday's rocket attack in Aqaba,
the Jordanians believe the organization may be of a different ilk."The firing of Katyusha rockets is not characteristic of what we know of Al-Qaida activity," a Jordanian government official told Haaretz.
"Their attacks choose an exact target and use accurate weapons that ensure success and a display," said the official. "Look at the attacks in Taba in October 2004 and the attack in Sharm el-Sheikh last month. The attack on the USS Cole off the shore of Yemen in October 2000 was also carried out with great accuracy and show, with a dinghy loaded with explosives. "The group of terrorists arrested this month in Jordan was going to carry out an attack using gas canisters and chemicals, that is, an accurate and large-scale attack.
The use of Katyushas might actually be characteristic of unorganized cells, with only minimal planning capability and irregular logistic ability."Behind this description lurks the concern that the attack on Aqaba was carried out by a local Jordanian underground, and not necessarily by Al-Qaida. However, the Jordanian report that Egyptian and Iraqi nationals, along with a Syrian, were arrested undermines the Jordanian official's evaluation and raises concerns that Jordan, in spite of the excellent record of its intelligence forces, is becoming an arena for Al-Qaida operations.
From Jordan's perspective, the difference between these two terrorist elements impacts primarily on the means of combating them. Al-Qaida's goals in attacks like these are mainly anti-American, as opposed to local organizations, which want to harm the regime and threaten the stability, or at least the economy, of the country, its tourism or its foreign investments. To stop the latter, Jordan has to enlist local forces - tribal and religious.
This is not the first time local and foreign terrorists have operated in Jordan. In 2000, Jordan arrested terrorists from Syria seeking to operate against Israel from its territory. In the city of Ma'an, in southern Jordan, a few dozen religious activists have been arrested over the past three years, suspected of links to Al-Qaida or of smuggling weapons from Saudi Arabia. The murder of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley was also attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian citizen whose family still lives in Jordan. But
apparently Jordan's main concern is over the increase in the influence of terrorists operating in Iraq, because of the relative porousness of Jordan's borders.The official crossings between Jordan and Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are closely monitored by the Jordanians, but the kingdom's long borders do not allow it to really stop illegal infiltration.
Among its problems are tribal relations between the citizens of northern Saudi Arabia and Jordanians in the Ma'an area, which facilitate smuggling. In addition, groups of Syrians smuggling mainly drugs or Syrian laborers into Jordan apparently now have new "clients."The main problem, which is not only Jordan's, is Iraq. Since the end of the war, Iraq has become the chief supplier of weapons and explosives to every gang. Large quantities of weapons and ammunition are smuggled from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, and thus Iraq has replaced the previous "exporter," Yemen. These weapons then make their way to other countries in the region, including Jordan and Egypt, thus solving an important logistics problem for the terror organizations.
Several Arrested in Jordan Rocket Attacks
Several Arrested in Jordan Rocket Attacks
By SHAFIKA MATTAR
Associated Press
Saturday August 20, 2005 9:16 PM
AQABA, Jordan (AP) -
Police detained several suspects on Saturday as the hunt widened for the attackers who fired and supplied the rockets that narrowly missed a U.S. Navy ship anchored in the bay of this Red Sea port best known for beach vacations and Mideast summits.
Those arrested included Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians and Jordanians, according to a Jordanian security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. He would not give the number of detainees.
Interior Minister Awni Yirfas told The Associated Press that security forces had found the launcher used to fire the three Katyusha rockets.
Police found four more rockets when they seized the launcher in a warehouse in an industrial zone on a hillside overlooking Aqaba, state TV reported Saturday. The four rockets were defused, the report said. The newscast did not say whether anyone had been detained for Friday's attack.
The Gulf of Aqaba, a narrow northern extension of the Red Sea, is bordered by Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia with the frontiers of the four countries touching or within view of one another.
A further outbreak of terrorism in the region would be particularly worrisome not only because of U.S. Navy targets in the area but also because Muslim extremists want to topple governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan - all longtime American allies. Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel.
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades - an al-Qaida-linked group that claimed responsibility for the bombings which killed at least 64 people at Sharm el-Sheik in July and 34 people at two other Egyptian resorts last October - said in an Internet statement that its fighters had fired the Katyushas, bolstering concerns that Islamic extremists had opened a new front in the region.
Authorities said the warehouse used to launch the notoriously inaccurate rockets had been rented days beforehand by four men carrying Iraqi and Egyptian identity papers.
The security official who disclosed Saturday's arrests said an Iraqi detainee was suspected of taking part in the attack, but he cautioned against assuming the others arrested were equally involved.
A Jordanian soldier was killed and another wounded when one Katyusha flew across the bow of the USS Ashland and hit a warehouse used by the Americans to store goods headed to Iraq.
Two more rockets were fired toward Israel. One fell short and hit the wall of a Jordanian military hospital. The other landed close to Israel's Eilat airport, lightly wounding a taxi driver.
Police said Saturday they were searching for as many as six people - including one Syrian, Egyptians and Iraqis - who escaped in a vehicle with Kuwaiti license plates.
Security was tightened nationwide, including in the capital Amman, which has been the target of several failed al-Qaida terrorist plots - including one using chemicals in April 2004. Police at road blocks were stopping cars and checking identity papers. Pictures of suspects were distributed to border checkpoints.
Although the rockets missed the USS Ashland, the Navy decided to sail both of its ships out of Aqaba bay as a precaution. They had arrived earlier in the week for a military exercise with the Jordanian navy.
Jordan is trying to determine the source of the rockets, and how they were smuggled into the country, which has tight border security.
Lebanon's Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has thousands of Katyushas.
Doug Richardson, of the London-based Jane's Defense Review, said the rockets have been widely copied from their original Russian design and modified by many countries, including those in eastern Europe and China. Iran and Hezbollah would be ``potential sources'' of the weapon, he said in a telephone interview.In Lebanon, a Hezbollah official declined to comment when asked about the group's involvement.
In Syria, Elias Murad, chief editor of Al-Baath newspaper, mouthpiece of the country's ruling Baath Party, said attempts to involve Damascus were ``ridiculous because Katyusha rockets exist in two-thirds of the world.''
Hezbollah pounded Israel's north with Katyusha rockets for two decades in a guerrilla war that ended with Israel's pullout from southern Lebanon in 2000.
In Iraq, insurgents have used Katyusha rockets against U.S. military installations.
The Terrorist Attack in Aqaba.....
Analysis: Terrorist fool Jordan's security
By Sana Abdallah
United Press International Published August 19, 2005
AMMAN, Jordan -- Jordan's security measures and impressive record in aborting possible terrorism attacks in the kingdom were cracked Friday when three mortar rockets were fired from Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba.
A Jordanian soldier was killed and another was injured when one rocket landed at a Jordanian military warehouse in the port, another missile fell near a military hospital in Aqaba and a third hit the nearby Israeli resort of Eilat.
Officials said the attackers may have missed their intended target of two U.S. navy vessels docked at the port of Aqaba, both of which apparently left the area shortly after the rockets were fired Friday morning.
The authorities said the mortars were fired from a warehouse in an industrial zone that had been leased to a group of four Egyptians and Iraqis a few days ago and they were combing Aqaba and its surroundings for the four men.
A statement signed by the Abdullah al-Azzam Brigades of al-Qaida Organization in the Levant and Egypt, which claimed responsibility for the nearby Sharm el-Sheikh blasts last month, said on an Islamic website that they carried out the Aqaba attacks.
The statement, which could not be authenticated, vowed that Friday's attack, the first of their kind in the country, was "our debut operation in Jordan," saying that a group of its fighters targeted U.S. vessels with three Katyusha rockets. It warned the Americans, "who are spreading their corruption throughout the world and who have stolen the wealth of the Muslim nation, to expect even more stinging attacks."
"
As we have begun to destroy the throne of the Egyptian tyrant, we warn the Jordanian tyrant to release our jailed brothers and voluntarily abdicate before we force you to go," the group threatened.
Jordan, a close U.S. ally, was the second Arab country after Egypt to have signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 -- an unpopular move that had sharply increased security measures in the country in the past 11 years.
Jordan's King Abdullah, currently on an official visit to Russia, strongly condemned the attack and swore that it would not stop him from fighting terrorism and to chase down "all those who fiddle with Jordan's security and stability."
Palace sources said the king was in constant contact with the authorities and following up on investigations after his favorite Jordanian getaway spot, Aqaba, was hit. Abdullah frequents his palace on the shores of the resort town on weekends.
Although security in Aqaba was beefed up following the massive attacks on the Egyptian tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last month, in which about 90 people were killed, Friday's rocket attack seemed to have shocked the monarch, who has prided in his country's reputation for stopping the terrorists, or suspected terrorists, from carrying out their plans.
Friday's events seriously cracked the country's security system, especially that mortar rockets and a launcher or more managed to be smuggled into what was believed to be an airtight security area. The attacks, while not targeting the mainly local tourists, came despite the fact that the State Security Court is currently hearing close to a dozen terror-related cases that include dozens of suspects - all who were arrested before carrying out their alleged attacks - and despite the high security presence around the country.
Jordan was perhaps the leading country in the world to have cracked down on "potential terrorists" who were trained in al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and who returned to the kingdom in the mid-1990s.
The country's security services have earned the reputation of frightening "potential terrorists" from even thinking or plotting to use violence against any target on its territories and have not hesitated in putting advocates of violence behind bars. In the past ten years, before the names of al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden, became known worldwide, Jordan has put on trial dozens of suspects it said were linked to the terrorist group for planning to carry out attacks. Even bin Laden himself was tried and sentenced in absentia a few years before he became a notorious household name around the world before the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
One former top intelligence officer told United Press International that the "advanced" Jordanian intelligence services had been the main supplier of credible information on al-Qaida and its affiliates to U.S. counterparts and had greatly contributed to the American investigations into the network.
Although the country prides itself on foiling terrorist attacks before they are carried out, the process has not been without complaints that innocent men -- Islamists to be specific -- have been thrown in jail and sometimes coerced into making false confessions if they appear to have a tendency towards resorting to violence. But these complaints in recent years have dwindled with the growing trend of violence being carried out in the name of Islam around the world, even among critics of human rights violations who now reluctantly admit "it is better to live in a police state than to risk living with terror."
Whoever was responsible for the Aqaba attacks - and al-Qaida group seems the likely candidate - clearly sent a message Friday that Jordan is not immune from the explosions that have been getting louder and more frequent by the day in the region and most of the rest of the world.
Hajjaj's Cartoon on HM King Abdullah's ROCKING SPEECH
Jordan's king warns deputies not to block reforms by REUTERS
Jordan's king warns deputies not to block reforms
16 Aug 2005 17:48:49 GMT
By Suleiman al-Khalidi
REUTERS
AMMAN, Aug 16 (Reuters) -
Jordan's King Abdullah told conservative tribal deputies on Tuesday to put national interests above petty squabbling, comments officials said were a warning not to block Western-style reforms.
Officials said the king's rare attack on the group that has traditionally been the monarchy's staunchest supporter was meant to head off growing opposition to a programme of accelerated reforms planned by Prime Minister Adnan Badran's cabinet.
"It's not in the interest of the country to transform parliament to a battleground between blocs or political centres of power," the monarch told conservative loyalists who dominate the country's 110-member assembly, which is largely tribal.
"The challenges we face are much bigger than squabbling over who wants to be a minister or prime minister," Abdullah said in an address from the palace.
Badran, a 69-year-old U.S.-educated academic appointed last April, is trying to tackle corruption, push through major state asset sales and streamline a bloated public sector. His efforts have brought mounting criticism. Conservative deputies accuse him of promoting a pro-Western reform agenda and ignoring tribal sensitivities, and many also fear electoral reforms may dilute the influence of their Bedouin power base.
Tough parliamentary criticism of Badran's performance has been viewed as the most direct challenge to Abdullah's reform agenda since he assumed the throne in 1999, officials say.
Badran survived a vote of confidence to stay on last month only after he succumbed to tribal pressure to accept the resignation of Bassem Awadallah, a leading reformer of Palestinian origin, who was Abdullah's main economic advisor.
"If we want to strengthen Jordan, we should all be working together as a team, and we should continue along the path of reform, modernization and development," the monarch said.
"This endeavour requires new legislation, the delay of which will obstruct our progress. We are at the threshold of a new stage of modernization and development, so I ask all of you to work with the highest sense of responsibility."
The conservative establishment fears free market reforms will erode its grip on power and privileges, and has accused Badran's team of bowing to a U.S. reform agenda.
Although Washington has praised Jordan as a regional ally and model of pro-Western moderation, critics of the government say poverty and corruption among officials are on the rise.
Most powers rest with the king, who appoints governments, approves legislation and dissolves parliament.
Hajjaj's Cartoon in today's issue of Al Ghad on the Withdrawal from Gaza
In a break-up from the usual coverage of local related news, I wanted to signal today and the coming week as a historic day of Freedom for our Palestinian brethern in the Gaza Strip...
Inshallah this will happen in our lifetime....
Jordan Moving Forward by Kenneth Katzman
Jordan Moving Forward by
Kenneth KatzmanThe Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research
14 Jun 2005
Eleven years after its peace treaty with Israel, and five years after the accession of King Abdullah II, Jordan has been infused with new energy on both the political and economic fronts, led by a new cabinet appointed in April 2005. The new cabinet, under leadership of Prime Minister Adnan Badran, has been specifically mandated to jump-start long-stalled reform.
On the political front, these officials and the rest of King Abdullah II's team are attempting to build on Jordan's longstanding and largely successful strategy of political tolerance. The strategy of inclusiveness and tolerance has thus far kept the Islamic fundamentalist Islamic Action Front (IAF), the largest of Jordan's 31 legal parties, non-violent and committed to working within the legitimate political process. Although there has been some political violence in the kingdom, Jordan has been mostly spared the waves of Islamist uprisings seen in nearby Egypt. Jordanian nationals have not, for the most part, been eager recruits for al-Qaeda. On the other hand, it should be noted that Osama bin Laden's spiritual mentor, Dr. Abdullah al-Azzam, was a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, as is the pro-al- Qaeda militant leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The king's new team is, first and foremost, pushing a concept of decentralization—empowering localities at the expense of the Amman-based center. The team notes that only about half of Jordan's local mayors are now elected, and the government wants to institute elections for all mayors and municipal councils in Jordan's estimated 100 municipalities. The team also plans to institute a version of federalism by dividing the country into three administrative regions, each presumably more attuned to the needs of their region and better positioned than Amman to focus economic development.
The government has also appointed 200 mostly young Jordanians to work on a 'national agenda'. According to the country's leadership, the agenda will focus on how to reform eleven different political and economic sectors. In addition, the government is wrestling with new laws on political parties, as well as on the licensing of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). NGOs are watching the drafting process closely to ensure that the law on NGOs is not too restrictive, although the government wants to ensure that NGOs in Jordan cannot become a tool for regional extremist organizations. Similarly, the law over political parties will be intended to try to strengthen secular parties to enable them to compete with the IAF, which virtually dwarfs all other parties in terms of membership. A new election law is likely to expand Jordan's elected Chamber of Deputies beyond its current 110 members. However, to move forward faster, the mindset of Jordan's parliamentarians might have to change somewhat. Even though they have that formal power, parliamentarians are still hesitant to draft legislation themselves, preferring instead to react to government draft bills.
The thrust of the new cabinet's economic programs is to increase the size of the private sector relative to the government economic sector. The team has also set a highly ambitious goal of 7.5% growth per year through the end of the decade. Helping the new team is a real estate boom fueled by the relocation of Iraqis fleeing instability in their homeland, as well as the location and relocation of US and other programs intended to assist Iraq and train Iraqi security and government personnel. The end of UN sanctions against Iraq has ensured a steady stream of goods offloaded at Aqaba port and trucked into Iraq, providing employment and fees for Jordan.
Jordan has unveiled major plans to attract more vacationers and holiday home-buyers to Aqaba. Jordan's exports are benefiting greatly from Jordan's free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States and production from the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ's), created in the context of peace with Israel.
The reformist government acknowledges that it is up against entrenched and determined resistance. Jordan's traditional power structure recognizes that a merit and rule-based private sector-driven economy is a threat. The traditional power structure, especially the still strong tribal leaders throughout Jordan, has viewed the government as a source of employment and patronage for their constituents. A public sector that is no longer growing and hiring therefore denies tribal leaders the ability to provide constituent service. The new government team says it will find alternative means to satisfy the traditional power structure, such as by granting tribal leaders more control over local development projects that will employ Jordanians. Tribal leaders, however, remain skeptical and continue to form a major core of opposition to reform.
Another obstacle in the way of progress is the recent rapid rise in oil prices. Jordan subsidizes gasoline prices for its citizens by buying crude oil and providing it to refineries. Therefore, when oil prices rise, the budgetary demand on the government for that subsidy also rises.With the Saudi grant now expired amid the possibility of non-renewal or finding no alternatives, and with oil prices rising over $50 per barrel, Jordan faces an oil bill of over US$500 million per year, a very large commitment. Eliminating the oil subsidy, on the other hand, would likely spark unrest, and Jordan is unwilling to run that risk.
Jordan's new government faces several hurdles. Some are particularly connected with the possibility of a partial change of the guard as dictated by geographic considerations, specifically related to representation in the southern region. However, the government appears determined to catapult Jordan forward.
Jordan is reaping the benefit of the perception that it is an island of stability amid turmoil to its east and its west. Its extensive cooperation with US policy toward Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process virtually ensures that it will not receive major criticism from the Bush administration even if political reform moves forward only slowly. The new government team, however, remains up against traditional attitudes and approaches in an essentially conservative society, and even the most optimistic members of the new government team believe that they need to improve their communication of the benefits of reform to the large segments of the population that remain skeptical.
The Arab Isla'ah - Reform
