New Doubts Over Reform as Jordan Shifts Cabinet

Since protests inspired by the Arab Spring rocked Jordan 15 months ago, the king has replaced three prime ministers, none of whose governments effected significant change.

The governments “proved a definite truth: that the mechanism of appointing the government is no longer feasible,” said Khaled Kalaldeh, secretary general of the Social Leftist Movement and a member of a national dialogue on the reform process.

The new prime minister, Fayez Tarawneh, 62, held the post in the late 1990s. Educated in the United States, he has also served as foreign minister and as chief of the royal court, and he led Jordan’s negotiating team that reached a peace agreement with Israel in the 1990s. Nasser Judeh retained his post as foreign minister in the new 30-member cabinet.

When Jordanians took to the streets early last year, demanding an end to corruption and more democracy and subsidies, it was the first serious challenge to the rule of King Abdullah, a crucial American ally who inherited the throne in 1999. Within a month, the king fired the sitting government and pledged to open a political reform process. The demonstrations have rumbled on, but at a lower level of intensity.

The king has sought to focus public dissatisfaction with the pace of change on some of his appointees. After Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh resigned last week, after just six months, the king wrote a letter to him expressing frustration that legislation for elections had not been completed, despite his intent to hold municipal and parliamentary elections before the end of the year.

The change in government “just reveals the absence of political will to accomplish reform in Jordan,” said Zaki Saad, who leads the political bureau of the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jordan’s largest opposition force. He said that it was the first time in his political career that he had seen such a lack of interest among the public.

Hassan Barari, a professor at the University of Jordan, said that the rapid cabinet changes had widened the gap between the state and society. “Reform is the victim each time,” he said. “Each time we go back to square one.”