The appointment of a new cabinet in Jordan this week signalled a greater involvement by the king in the running of the country, Sana Abdallah reports from Amman Jordan's King Abdullah II on 22 October appointed his Royal Court Minister Faisal Al-Fayez as the country's new prime minister, a sign of the monarch's intention to be more directly involved with government affairs. Al-Fayez, 51, has been close to Abdullah since the king's ascension in February 1999, and was chief of the royal protocol before taking his ministerial position in March. In a lengthy letter of designation, Abdullah indicated that Al-Fayez had garnered trust based on his "initiative and devotion in implementing our directives". The palace's direct involvement in this new cabinet was established as the king attended a two-day "retreat" in the southern Red Sea city of Aqaba, where Al-Fayez and potential cabinet members gathered to select the new ministers and outline a working plan for the new government in accordance with the monarch's letter of designation to Al-Fayez. On 25 October, the cabinet was downsized to 21 members from the previous 29. Some ministries were scrapped, others were merged, and in an unprecedented move three women were assigned ministerial portfolios, including a prominent human and women's rights lawyer, Asma Khader. Khader has had her share of conflicts over the years with successive governments and various authorities for her defence of political prisoners and outspoken criticism of human rights abuses in the country. Although prominent ministers such as Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher, Interior Minister Samir Habashneh and Planning Minister Bassem Awadallah have been retained, the new cabinet features the new faces of "young technocrats". Al-Fayez, educated in Britain and holder of a master's degree in international relations from Boston University, replaced one of Jordan's longest-serving prime ministers, Ali Abu Al-Ragheb, who apparently submitted his government's resignation upon the request of the king. Abu Al-Ragheb held the premiership since June 2000, overseeing six Cabinet reshuffles. The most recent overhaul was not paved with the typical leaks to the official press that usually precede such a move at least one week in advance, causing analysts to surmise that the king became suddenly disenchanted with Abu Al-Ragheb and his government's performance. Abdullah's dissatisfaction was implicitly revealed in his letter of appointment to Al-Fayez, in which he outlined his vision and expectations of the new government. He called for "evaluating with impartiality" the performance of the previous governments and to "notice the aspects of weakness which sometimes characterised their performance and the lack of coordination between the members, which affected the spirit of teamwork and reflected negatively on harmony among them and the achievement of goals envisioned". Abdullah also envisaged the new government as a bridge between theory and practice -- a step towards progressive "initiative" and one "accomplishment followed by another". He stressed an integrative approach to reform and development. The king insisted on empowering women, fighting corruption and nepotism, eliminating bureaucracy and imposing transparency in government and ministerial institutions. The king previously raised these issues in his letter of appointment to Abu Al-Ragheb, who apparently did not sufficiently implement these aspects of "good governance". Palace sources privately revealed that the king had recently become critical of Abu Al-Ragheb for what they said was his failure to "really work towards the reform the king wanted to see". His call to Al-Fayez for press freedoms was immediately followed with the scrapping of the Information Ministry, which has been supplanted by the Higher Media Council, a body formed more than two years ago to regulate the official media and afford greater freedom to the private-sector press. The king had issued the same instructions to the former premier three years ago, but the demand was never met. Palace sources said that although the previous government had focussed on economic development by issuing dozens of provisional bills to attract investment, it had resisted other royally-mandated reforms, such as stalling on the drafting of legislation to grant women more rights. Although his now-deposed government recently received a vote of confidence from the newly-elected, 110-seat Lower House of Parliament -- often described as a government rubber stamp -- Abu Al-Ragheb has also been sharply criticised by the opposition, led by the Islamic Action Front (IAF). The IAF along with leftist and pan-Arab nationalist parties and professional syndicates, have particularly blasted Abu Al-Ragheb's governments for severely curbing public freedoms over the past few years by issuing a host of provisional bills that banned public assemblies and curtailed press freedoms. Opposition leaders and independent observers, however, were not optimistic that the new government -- even if it had a "nicer face" -- would actually introduce real changes desired by the general public, be they related to domestic political freedoms, real economic improvement or foreign policy. They seriously doubt the new government would respect growing frustration with what they see as Jordan's total submission to the US and escalating calls to revoke the unpopular 1994 peace treaty with Israel.
