My apologies…this WOULD have been breaking news had my blog not taken the backseat this past week due to Arabic midterms! لحمد لله all done and off to Petra and Wadi Rum to stay in a traditional Bedoine camp...posts to come!
So here’s the deal…for the past couple months there have been protests downtown after Friday prayers. Despite scattered incidence of violence (including a burning car that forced a road closing and canceling of our weekend hiking plans :( ) The protestors have been demonstrating peacefully against government corruption, the high living costs in Amman compared to the wages that people make on average here, and these bogus redrawing of municipality lines. The main consensus was that the government was uncoordinated, incoherent with its policies, couldn’t handle any issue that would come up. As I mentioned in a previous entry, the people of Jordan LOVE their King and the royal family is looked at like beloved celebrities – the criticism of the governing structure is thus all directed at the Parliament. On October 24th, appeasing the people’s demands, King Abdullah asked the Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit to resign. The task of forming a new Cabinet, to take a fresh approach to the issues facing a Middle Eastern country amidst increased cries for democracy and government accountability, is now entrusted to Awn Khasawneh.
This is an interesting choice, for Khasawneh has no past political career, in fact his most recent work was for the International Criminal Court. The lack of “experience” may actually bode well for him, because he isn’t touched by the corruption rampant in the past government, and his law background gives people hope that he will abide by the rule of law and institute just reforms in the Jordanian political system.
In the King’s Letter designating Khasawneh as the new premier (which was published in the Jordan Times) he stated that: “The primary mission of this government is to implement a political reform process with clear milestones, not just arbitrary timetables. The government must also draft legislation and laws and conduct municipal elections. This demands coordination between the legislative and executive branches, and neither must encroach upon the other. It also necessitates drawing a roadmap to achieve political reform based on clear foundations and criteria. Citizens must be kept abreast of achievements at each stage, as they materialise, for the challenges facing Jordan at this time are both great and complex.”When I first saw the headlines in the Jordan Times that the government had been dissolved – I expected riots in the streets, or at least some good, old-fashioned stone throwing! However, making it to school in one piece, I learned from my professors that this is a fairly routine transition, actually the second time it’s happened this year! Accordingly, the transition is going fairly smoothly and the Jordanians that I’ve talked to, for the most part, have a positive outlook and believe that progress and reform is soon to come with this legitimate new premier taking the reigns in the government.
I think that the most significant aspect of this government change is that, through organized, peaceful, routine demonstrations, Jordanians were able to voice their concerns and their King seemed to have heard them and responded with a change of policy. Politics driven by the will of the people? Sounds a lot like democracy to me J
No comments:
Post a Comment