With the recent resignation of Prime Minister Awn Shawkat al-Khasawneh after only six months in office, the Jordanian political
merry-go-round continued to spin. Ever since the Arab Awakening arrived in Amman last year, King Abdullah has enhanced his strategy of avoiding political reforms by expressing support for reform, appointing study committees, ignoring their recommendations, blaming the failure on the Prime Minister and then firing the Prime Minister. The exiting PM then fades gracefully into the background until called upon again in some future political round. As the International Crisis Group recently reported, “The king has shuffled cabinets and then shuffled them again, using prime ministers as buffers to absorb popular discontent. He has charged committees to explore possible reforms, but these remain largely unimplemented."
Al-Khasawneh violated all the political rules by resigning in a curtly worded letter submitted while he was traveling in Turkey. Al-Khasawneh was generally seen as a reformist, liberal politician determined to root out corruption and reign in the intelligence service. He opened dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Islamic Action Front and other opposition groups. His failure to deliver on his promises and his introduction of a new election law designed to further marginalize the opposition by banning religious parties and limiting the number of opposition seats in Parliament cost him what support he had among opposition MP’s.
The Jordanian political landscape is characterized by sharp divisions between “East Bankers” and “West Bankers”. The “East Bankers” are largely Bedouins who tend to vote along tribal lines and generally support the monarch. The “West Bankers” are largely urban Palestinians who migrated to today’s Jordan when the West Bank was part of Transjordan or are refugees from the wars of 1948 and 1967. Making up half of Jordan’s population, “West Bankers” tend to be more Islamic in their politics and advocate for a more powerful and representative Parliament. They have been marginalized politically by election laws that weight the tribal vote much heavier than the urban vote.
Low level unrest demanding real reform and deteriorating economic conditions continue to plague the ruling political class. The new Prime Minister, Fayez Tarawneh, is seen as a conservative who is unlikely to bring about significant change.
When I was in Jordan last month, I asked a number of Jordanians about their views on the current political situation. Most that I spoke with expressed support for King Abdullah and his fashionable wife Rania. I tend to agree with Middle East analyst Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute Doha Center who commented on Twitter, “Jordan will seem 'stable', until it's not. And then it will be too late”.
(Picture by ForeignPolicy.com)
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