Comments about Reform in Jordan

@ian_black I like your comment, I think it is fair.

The comment of Mrs Faisal about the timing being wrong is out of place, perhaps she was not fully aware of the constitutional requirements following the amendments.

Either now or Parliament has to set for its ordinary session. This is why the session was postponed for 2 months. In the case, the 1st of Oct (5 days ago) came without postponement HM  the King would not have been able to dissolve parliament and call for early elections.

The call for new electoral law and therefore elections was one of the earliest demands of the popular movements. and the HM the King said many a time that Jordan will have the fourth of the major reform issues before the end of this year. He said it at the UN, European parliament and most importantly he said it to his people. So the sequence of events was like this:

1) Amend the constitution (look at Egypt when this was left to the end of the political reform process). This was done almost to half of the articles.

The amendment of the constitution is the cause of having 3 consecutive PM which Mrs. Faisal refers to:

  1) One PM recommends dissolving parliament, He can not hold the elections for fear of conflict of interest.

  2) Second different PM carries out fair elections, he also must resign once parliament sits, also for fear of conflict of interest

  3) Then a PM is appointed hopefully from parliament this time, he asks for parliamentary confidence on a platform and hopefully stays for 4 years

2) Establish the Independent Electoral Commission, to supervise the elections and take the role of the Interior Ministry in running elections . The government has nothing to do with carrying out the elections, independent watch bodies will be called (local and international to supervise and to check the integrity of the process)

3) Enact the Constitutional Court Law, and appoint the Judges (done today)

4) Enact a new electoral law, create a new election register whereby the people were located to where they live, and issue a once-use electoral ID to be destroyed after use.

When debating consensus on the electoral law. You can not have consensus in any country, but you can not tailor the law to suit a party (as of this afternoon 2 million voters out of 3 million:66% have registered for voting). You could move boundaries between constituencies (UK) or (USA) to suit this or that party, but if any party does not like the law because it believes it will not give him what he wants, then either run (and lose your deposit) or stay at home and do not run. Which is exactly like the position of the citizen who does not believe in any form of government: he stays at home. However for parties to introduce change they have to be in parliament. You can not introduce change from the street, which I am sure you know that it will then be called anarchy.

Now these are the political reforms which form half of the problem, the other half is the faltering economy, the high prices of energy,the large budget deficit, the large national debt, and the subsidy to energy, water and basic food which stand between international fiscal support and getting it.

 My respects and try to get in touch if you are in this nick of the woods.