Jihad el-Khazen

The Kuwaiti opposition is lousy and it wants a fake democracy that serves its own narrow interests at the expense of the whole country. The Jordanian opposition may have made mistakes, but it is not lousy, definitely not as lousy as the Kuwaiti opposition at any rate. Having compared the political crises in Kuwait and Jordan yesterday, I continue today, as promised, with a review of the situation in Jordan, where I find that the opposition may be right in some of the issues it is complaining about. The opposition, especially amongst the clans which have always been the backbone of support for Hashemite rule, wants jobs. Yet various government departments are overstaffed, and most likely, they employ more people than the country needs. The opposition also wants subsidies, and both this and the demand for jobs are difficult to meet in Jordan, a non-oil producing Arab country with limited revenues. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that previous Jordanian governments had failed to develop the provinces, while concentrating their spending on the capital Amman at the latter’s expense. This coincided with an economic downturn and growing unemployment, because of the lack of real infrastructure projects, or the inability to finance such projects. The successive Jordanian governments also made a mistake by not gradually ending their subsidies of foodstuffs, electricity bills and fuel, to allow the citizens to gradually adapt to higher costs. It seems that some of these governments woke up to the need to stop subsidies, but feared a confrontation with the citizens in the streets, and thus failed to make the appropriate decision until things got to the point at which the matter could be delayed no longer. Lifting subsidies thus provoked the street, and many citizens felt that there has been a mismanagement of public funds where they alone are required to make sacrifices, with no similar austerity practiced by officials. Undoubtedly, the Arab spring has exacerbated the crisis in Jordan, and encouraged the opposition to take on a more hardline stance, particularly the Islamist groups. Thus protests and sit-ins began, and their first success materialized when the government of Samir Rifai resigned, emboldening the street and increasing its confidence in its ability to bring about change. Meanwhile, there have been official meetings and discussions to study the scope of the required change and what demands can be met in order to draft a roadmap for the period ahead. The National Dialogue committee was thus established, chaired by Taher al-Masri, former prime minister and current Senate chairman. The dialogue committee did not exclude anyone from the contacts it has made, and met with all segments of the opposition and the pro-government forces. The committee made specific proposals, but these were not implemented, which has further reinforced the belief in the street that the government is not serious about implementing the required reforms, especially since previous recommendations and decisions by royal committees were also not implemented. I believe that the political crisis in Jordan has hit a wall, and that change is now too late. Indeed, King Abdullah II has made up his mind, and his only option now is to walk the path of the elections. The king will succeed if the turnout will be high in January, despite calls by the opposition to boycott the voting. Perhaps the only major problem that needs to be addressed lies in the Islamist movement. True, everyone is in agreement that the Islamists are a force to be reckoned with, and that they play a crucial role in parliament. Nonetheless, the Islamists are opportunists who say one thing and do another, and perhaps they are biding their time waiting for the chance to rule the country, like the Muslim Brotherhood did in Egypt. To be sure, all Islamist movements in the Arab world came from under the mantle of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Jordan’s Islamists want to repeal the one-vote law, although it is the basis, nay the definition, of democracy, which enshrines the principle of “one man (or woman), one vote.” They also want to limit the powers of the king through the abolition of Articles 34, 35 and 36 of the Jordanian Constitution, which give the king the right to dissolve the parliament and appoint the prime minister. Personally, I do not think that King Abdullah II will voluntarily give up his powers, and there is no justification for him to do so. For one thing, his popular base is broader and deeper than that of the opposition. While we saw some protests being staged by clansmen, the clans will no doubt remain the backbone of the regime, and will rally around the king if there is a threat to him as they always have. So perhaps the king is working hard to overcome the pitfalls in the relations between the regime and the clans, which are the linchpin of his rule, as each side is indispensable to the other.  -- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.