Jordan’s bid to revive political landscape may have come too late

Three months after it was formed, Jordan’s Royal Committee on Modernizing the Political System delivered its recommendations to King Abdullah last week. The 92-member committee, comprising public figures representing various political, social and economic streams, was given the task of submitting drafts for new elections and political party laws in addition to proposals to empower women and youth, and improve local administration.
The royal initiative follows years of public demands for major political reforms amid a lackluster political environment. The king had presented his vision for political reforms through a series of discussion papers following the so-called Arab Spring. He called for a gradual transformation toward parliamentary government, where political parties compete for public confidence to run the executive branch as an alternative to appointed governments.
A week after the committee delivered its proposals, Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh reshuffled his Cabinet for the fourth time since he was appointed a year ago. The shake-up did not impress the street, which has become skeptical of the government’s performance and ability to deliver meaningful results that can improve the daily livelihood of millions of Jordanians. Since 2019, unemployment and poverty rates have risen to record levels, while national debt has topped $45 billion, more than 90 percent of gross domestic product. It is expected to pass the 100 percent mark in 2022.
In the past decade, Jordan has had six governments, all with royal mandates to improve the economy and livelihood of Jordanians. While the pandemic has had a major impact, the reality is that no single government has been able to correct the national economy’s downward spiral. The unemployment rate now stands at more than 25 percent, and is much higher among youth and women — an alarming socioeconomic indicator.
Activists and political parties blame the single-vote system, adopted in the mid-1990s to restrain the Islamists, for the decaying political life in the kingdom. After more than two decades of parliamentary elections held under this system and its variations, most Jordanians have lost faith in successive legislatures and the ability of elected MPs to perform their oversight duty or introduce genuine reforms. Political parties, now numbering more than 50, have failed to either win seats or form blocs, with the exception of the Islamic Action Front and its allies.
The result has been a marginalization of political parties, the gross encroachment of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative and the judiciary, the explosive rise of sub-identities at the expense of a uniting national identity, and the influence of the so-called black money on voters. Little surprise, then, that more than 70 percent of Jordanians no longer trust their deputies and that voter turnout in last year’s elections was less than 30 percent.
Activists and political figures have talked about the lack of political will at the highest level to change the political status quo and introduce genuine reforms. But now there is royal commitment to pass the two laws that the committee proposed.
The general aim of the laws is to enable and empower political parties incrementally and over a period of up to 12 years so that the kingdom may eventually be governed by elected parliamentary governments. It is no understatement to say that Jordanians have been waiting for such a development for more than 30 years. The transition to democracy, as it was once called, was delayed under different pretenses; the most common was that Jordanians were not mature enough to govern themselves.
But the track record of previous appointed governments is dismal in almost all fields. Jordanians have become fed up with revelations of corruption in the public sector, mismanagement of public resources, declining public services and dilapidated infrastructure. A huge gap has emerged separating citizens from governments and MPs. This lack of trust has become a common trans-governmental denominator and anathema to incoming prime ministers.

While the pandemic has had a major impact, the reality is that no single government has been able to correct the national economy’s downward spiral.

Osama Al-Sharif

The problem for the new legislation proposed by the royal committee is that it comes too late to make any difference. Aside from some legislative obstacles — political parties need to pass a threshold of 2.5 percent of total votes under a proportional system and need to have 1,000 founding members to form a political party — Jordanians have mostly become apolitical. Most existing political parties are non-ideological and have vague programs.
Ironically, past governments fought to suppress an emerging secular and civil rights party. It is almost impossible for a political party to attract enough voters, although the fact those parties will run under a single national district, to contest 41 seats of a 130-seat lower house, may begin to heal the kingdom from the scourge of sub-identities and black money.
One positive achievement by the committee was its focus, in the report’s preface, on national identity regardless of origin — an issue that is divisive and controversial — and the rule of law. One issue remains central and that is that Jordan needs a major shift in its political life that goes beyond modernization and tackles the main challenge of fair separation of powers and people’s right to govern themselves as spelled out in the constitution.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. Twitter: @plato010