Agenda proposals unrelated to gov't change — King
Agenda proposals unrelated to gov't change — King
Monday, October 10, 2005
AMMAN (JT) — His Majesty King Abdullah on Sunday said
the release of the National Agenda proposals is unrelated to any government change, emphasising that talk of a Cabinet reshuffle or change was nothing but speculation. In an interview with Al Rai daily,
the King said a referendum on the National Agenda was unnecessary and was also unconstitutional.
He said
the next step is for the government to study the recommendations, principles and ideas agreed to by the members of the National Agenda Steering Committee, and on issues such as the Elections Law, the government may find a need for additional dialogue.
In response to a question about the Kingdom's glut of political parties, King Abdullah said the fact that Jordan has more than 30 parties is a hindrance to political reform. He said he hoped that in the future three to four parties would emerge as representing the principles and ideologies of the country with programmes tackling national, political, social and economic issues.
The Steering Committee for National Agenda was formed in February to set the Kingdom's socio-economic and political reform policies for the next 10 years.
King Abdullah told Al Rai that
the path of the National Agenda would take it through the evaluation of recommendations, and the translation of those proposals into programmes and laws that would go through the constitutional process.
Asked about the formation in January of the Royal Commission on administrative divisions, the Monarch said the goals involved planning, economic and development dimensions.
“We felt we needed to involve citizens in development and economic decision making to increase economic growth in the governorates and reduce poverty and unemployment.”
The commission is tasked with instituting a decentralisation plan that would divide the country into three administrative regions and grant citizens the right to elect their municipal councils.
Once again, he said, the findings of this committee will be put before the government for study and assessment, and the necessary procedures of programme and legislation drafting.
The King dismissed as baseless rumours that the administrative division concept was intended to pave the way for a Jordanian role in the West Bank, as a fourth region.
The King said he was certain that the Anti-Corruption Commission, which he formed in June, would be able to carry out its mandate.
In a public opinion poll released by the Centre for Strategic Studies in September 2005, citizens ranked fighting corruption second among their priorities, after reducing poverty and unemployment.
On pressing bread and butter issues such as the recent hikes in oil prices and the elimination of oil subsidies, King Abdullah listed several initiatives by the Royal Court and public institutions to provide in-kind and cash assistance to the underprivileged via a revamped method of identifying families and individuals who legitimately qualify for such assistance. He also said that plans were in motion to provide housing facilities for the needy.
But
the King emphasised that reduction of poverty and unemployment required increased private-public sector partnerships to create more job opportunities.
King Abdullah said the oil price increases do pose a burden, particularly on the poor, but he added that the step was necessary now to avoid becoming dependent.
“Either we face this problem ourselves or be victims of external economic effects,” the King said.
On Sunday, King Abdullah visited the Jordan Press Foundation (JPF), which publishes Al Rai, The Jordan Times and Hatem, a children's magazine.
He said local media outlets play a key role in spelling out Jordan's achievements and programmes.
The Monarch stressed that journalists should be committed to high professional standards, transparency and credibility.
During the visit, the King met with Chairman of JPF's Board of Directors Khalid Wazani, JPF Director General Nader Horani and Editor-in-Chief of Al Rai Abdul Wahab Zgheilat, who briefed the Monarch on the newspaper's achievements and future plans.
Jordan's Baathist Boom; The economy is humming, thanks to Iraqi cash - check the last two paragraphs
Jordan's Baathist Boom; The economy is humming, thanks to Iraqi cash.Lee Smith
The Weekly Standard
September 5, 2005 - September 12, 2005
Amman, Jordan - A GROUP AFFILIATED with Jordan's own Abu Musab al Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for the August 19 missile attack in Aqaba that targeted two U.S. Navy ships and killed one Jordanian soldier and injured a taxi driver in the neighboring Israeli resort of Eilat. Other Zarqawi plots have been interrupted, including a major chemical attack on Amman last spring, making this the first successful terrorist operation in Jordan--one of the Arab world's most security-conscious states--since the beginning of the Iraq war. Though it exposed a level of cooperation between Jordan and the United States many Jordanians were apparently unaware of, reactions here have been surprisingly blasé.
The night of the attack, I was dining with a group of Jordanians in one of Amman's fashionable night-life areas, and people seemed more concerned about the imminent return of Abu Qatada, a Jordanian-born fundamentalist sheikh whom the Blair government is only too happy to disgorge after the July bombings in London. "I really thought Jordanians would be freaked out when we finally got hit," says Rana Sweis, a 25-year-old Jordanian journalist. "And if it had happened two or three years ago, people would've been shocked and afraid. Things are very stable here, and Jordanians are very cautious. But look around you, everyone's out tonight."
Perhaps the relative calm is due to the fact that everyone else in the region has been hit considerably harder. Or maybe, as Fares Braizat, a researcher at the University of Jordan's Center for Strategic Studies, explains, it's because "Jordan was definitely not the target. If it was," he told me in his Amman office, "they would've gone after the capital here."
It's true that the missile attack, like the last successful terrorist operation in Jordan, which claimed the life of American diplomat Laurence Foley in October 2002, targeted Americans. However, as we saw when Western employees in the Saudi oil industry were killed, attacks in Muslim countries are often intended to bring attention to a government's relationship with Western concerns in order to embarrass the regime. As a recent Pew poll showed that 70 percent of Jordanians support attacks against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq, it's likely that much of that majority had not previously known that their government is a stalwart, albeit quiet, ally in the U.S.-led coalition's war. Now they know, and maybe the Royal Hashemite Court has some explaining to do.
However, targeting Aqaba suggests that the attack wasn't just a shot at the United States and its regional policies. It was also aimed at the Hashemite monarchy.
Aqaba is Jordan's only port and also its one Red Sea resort town. Throughout the region this summer the tourist industry has been repeatedly attacked, most spectacularly at Sharm al Sheikh, Egypt's Red Sea resort, where 88 people, mostly Egyptians, died. And in Lebanon, the series of bombs and assassinations that began with the February murder of a former Lebanese prime minister has virtually destroyed the summer tourism season, long a staple of the Lebanese economy. Perhaps Aqaba isn't yet as strong a tourist draw as Beirut or Egypt's numerous Sinai resorts, but the Jordanians are hoping to make good on the large investment they've poured into what they call the Red Sea Riviera, encompassing Taba in Egypt and Eilat in Israel.
Moreover, Aqaba is one of King Abdullah's pet projects, inherited from his late father, and he's provided the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority with some of the government's most progressive and talented officials. ASEZA is a duty-free zone built along the lines of Dubai's free zones and meant to encourage free trade. According to the much-publicized, perhaps overstated, plans for ASEZA, Aqaba's free-trade ethos and transparent management is meant to serve as a model for the rest of the country. If the Hashemites see Aqaba as their outlet onto the world, the operation there may have been meant to remind Jordan to watch its back.
In the meantime, Jordan's economy really has been transformed--thanks largely to Washington's political, diplomatic, and military engagement in the region. That is, if the Bush administration unleashed a lot of forces it didn't anticipate and can't control, some of those furies are working for the good.
In the last two years, Amman has grown exponentially, with new luxury hotels, malls, and restaurants that seem to be positioning this once undistinguished Arab capital as a second Beirut. Indeed, some of the cash coming in is a direct result of Syria's forced withdrawal from Lebanon. "Lots of Syrian money came after it left Beirut," says Braizat. "The Syrians are investing to escape Bashar [al-Assad's] regime."
So, what does it mean that Syria's merchant class is putting money into the coffers of the country's long-time regional rival? "If the private sector in Syria is connected to the private sector here," Braizat argues, "then this is cementing its relationship with the government here, and they don't see the [Syrian] regime surviving."
Others aren't so sure that Syrian investment means Bashar's reign is in trouble. "These are businessmen, and they like to have their bases covered," says Fateh Mansour, managing editor of Al Hadath. "Jordan's a good investment for them because we have a trade agreement with the United States, and they get access to Iraq."
The Syrians may want access to Iraq, but the real engine in the Jordanian economy right now is Iraqi cash, which arrived here with the fall of Baghdad. "Real estate prices have surged some 30 percent in the last year," says Braizat. One friend told me how an Iraqi offered him $50,000 more than what he paid for his apartment two years ago. "That's more than I've made my whole working life," the 35 year-old said.
And yet, there have been problems accompanying the Iraqi exodus into Jordan. The Iraqi government recently accused the kingdom of allowing members of Saddam Hussein's family and former regime in Jordan to finance insurgent groups in Iraq. Perhaps a more lingering concern is that the influx of Iraqis may throw off the country's delicate social structure, which balances a roughly equal number of citizens of Jordanian origin and those who are of Palestinian descent.
Mansour says there are already frictions with the Iraqis. "There's a joke going around that after all these years it's the Iraqis who are going to unify us--Palestinians and Jordanians are going to put aside our differences because of the Iraqis."
But what most seems to worry Amman residents is that the Jordanian economy will suffer if things get better in Iraq. Given that Jordan and Iraq are natural trading partners, such zero-sum math might seem strange, but there's not much free-market thinking in the region. After all, in a part of the world where riches have primarily come from oil, it's easy to think that there's only one chest of gold in the world, and if someone else has the key to it--Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United States, Iraq--then you and your family will starve.
It's true that Jordan hasn't exactly created all of its wealth out of thin air and owes much of its recent boom to what's happening next door in Iraq. Still, its economy shows results more persuasive than any amount of preaching by U.S. officials. "
I've heard some talk lately among Palestinians about Jordan," says Braizat. "These are very nationalistic, totally Palestinian elements who talk about [wanting] Jordan back in control of the West Bank. Of course it's not going to happen. King Abdullah is not expansionist and is very determined to see Jordan, as it is now, succeed. The point is that some Palestinians don't see the Palestinian Authority experience as successful. But the Jordanian example, based on human capital and with limited resources, they see as very successful."
This estimation is a far cry from the decades-long belief shared by many, including Palestinian nationalists, that the Hashemite kingdom's days are numbered. The question is whether Zarqawi is in a position to do something about it, or whether he's the last vestige of a futile cause.Lee Smith is writing a book on Arab culture.
Interesting articles/studies from the Arab Studies Quarterly....
Dear All,
I received the following articles about Jordan which have been published in the Arab Studies Quarterly. Please send me an email if you wish to receive an electronic copy of any of these very valuable articles…..
The 1993 elections in Jordan
Abla M. Amawi
SUMMER 1994
State strength, permeability, and foreign policy behavior: Jordan in theoretical perspective
Bassel F. Salloukh
SPRING 1996
Jordan: a study of attitudes toward democratic changes
Maher J. Massis
SUMMER 1998
Islamists, The State, And Cooperation In Jordan
Quintan Wiktorowicz
FALL 1999
Dynastic Modernism And Its Contradictions: Testing The Limits Of Pluralism, Tribalism, And King Hussein's Example In Hashemite Jordan
Andrew Shryock
SUMMER 2000
"Jordan first": Jordan's inter-Arab relations and foreign policy under King Abdullah II
Curtis R. Ryan
SUMMER 2004
Analysis: Jordan's balancing act by UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Analysis: Jordan's balancing actBy Leigh Baldwin
United Press International
September 29, 2005
Jordan, considered among the most stable countries in the Arab world, has not escaped the current of change running through the region.
The new climate emerged after a shift in American policy in the Middle East. Where previously the United States was content to strike pragmatic bargains with the region's autocrats, post-9/11 political opinion sees democratic development as the best defense against extremism. Jordan's King Abdullah, whose government depends on American economic support, has come under increasing pressure from his closest ally to accelerate reform.
East and west of the desert kingdom, change is afoot. Both the Palestinian Territories and Iraq have held democratic elections while further afield, Egypt and Lebanon are also making faltering steps toward more popular government.
External pressure is not the only imperative. Jordan, barren in natural resources, once enjoyed guaranteed cheap oil from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Since the invasion, pipelines have not been operating and crude is instead shipped from the Saudi port of Yanbu to Aqaba, where it is transferred to trucks. This is costly and inefficient. Gas prices are rising, as is popular discontent.
And behind any social unease in the Arab world lurks the specter of Islamist extremism. While Jordan's most notorious export, al-Qaida leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, wreaks destruction in Iraq, ways are being sought to forestall radicalism by including potential dissidents in the political process.
The result of all this has been the National Agenda, a consultative process launched by the king last February, according to which a royally appointed 26-man council is due to announce its recommendations for reform by the end of September. Is the process credible? "People are very skeptical," says Joost Hintermann of the International Crisis Group in Amman. The council is comprised entirely of loyalists to the regime -- former ministers, tribal leaders, businessmen, academics. Technocrats and young reformists are unrepresented.
Yet Hintermann sees no cause for excessive pessimism. "
This process involves more than high-falutin' language," he says. In contrast with previous attempts at change, "
all proposals will be linked directly to the national budget." This time, reform may be structural as well as rhetorical. At the center of the reform debate is controversy over the electoral system. Under current electoral laws, towns such as Zarqa, home of Zarqawi and inhabited mostly by Jordanians of Palestinian origin, are underrepresented politically. They elect far fewer parliamentary delegates than many smaller towns where inhabitants are of Bedouin tribal origin and loyal to the regime. These towns have proved fertile ground for radical Islam.
The existing electoral system of 'one man, one vote' is skewed in favor of the tribes, opposition movements claim. Given only one ballot, those in Bedouin areas vote largely according to tribal loyalty, often for a relative. Changes to the law currently under consideration would allow a supplementary vote for parties or candidates on a national list. The regime fears that such an amendment would transfer power away from loyalists to more hostile Islamist and Palestinian factions. But the government need not necessarily be wary of a cautious broadening of popular political involvement, says Samer Abu Libdeh, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"
A new electoral law would enable certain movements to appear," he says. "
Liberal and social democratic movements are not well organized because of the party law that hinders their formation. The Islamist movement will, of course, benefit. They are better organized. But they care less about being in power than about the Shariah (Islamic law.) Political and economic concerns are not of interest to them."
How much change can the government permit if it is to retain power? Is there a red line that even the modernizing king will not cross?
"I assume there is," says Hintermann. "
With changes to the parliamentary system, you'd be giving power to people who directly oppose the foreign policy of the regime." "
Abdullah is performing a balancing act," he explains. Jordan's close relationship with the United States is widely unpopular. In this respect, Abdullah finds himself in the opposite position to that in which his father, King Hussein, found himself during the first Gulf War. Hussein opposed the invasion of Iraq, gaining approval at home but antagonizing the United States and damaging Jordan economically in the process.
"Abdullah is facing an economic crunch. He must stay close to the U.S. to gain economic benefits and hope that these trickle down to the masses."
But unlike Hintermann,
Marwan Dudin, a former minister and advisor to the king, sees no reason why reforms should not succeed. Jordan is reaping the benefit of its position as a stable country in turbulent surroundings, he says. "We are a safe haven for money in the region. Kuwaitis and Saudis are investing heavily."
Nor should lack oil cause irreparable damage, he adds, explaining that a new deal with Egypt to pipe cheap natural gas to Jordan is meeting 50 percent of the country's electricity needs. Furthermore, improvements to the east in the next few years would provide oil for Jordan's new refinery, due to open in 2007 -- a timely event, given the global shortage in refining capacity. "If things settle down in Iraq, things will improve."
Questioned on voting reform, Dudin rebuts suggestions that intransigence could be dangerous. "
'One man, one vote' is, after all, what they have in the U.K," he laughs. "This is the model for our democracy. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough for us."
