Jordan's political troubles are increasing, says Khetam Malkawi The resignation of Jordan's prime minister Awn Khasawneh was not only surprising and unconventional, but according to columnists and political activists it may force authorities to delay holding parliamentary elections this year as previously pledged by the Jordanian monarch. Khasawneh, was the second Jordanian premier to send his resignation while out of town, after Mohamed Dawoud who resigned as premier while in Cairo in the 1970s. Khasawneh shocked Jordan with his unexpected resignation at a time the Kingdom is struggling to deal with the consequences of the Arab Spring. King Abdullah immediately appointed Fayez Tarawneh as the new PM. Tarawneh already held the post of PM at a transitional period in the political life in Jordan when he helped transition the Kingdom from the rule of the late King Hussein to King Abdullah. Tarawneh's tasks in his second assignment as prime minister are hard. The kingdom's political parties, tribes and the population at large are demanding faster political and economic decisions with an immediate impact on the lives of Jordanians. Jordan's largest opposition party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), was quick to announce after the appointment of Tarawneh that what is needed is a radical change in the way governments are formed in Jordan. The IAF, which is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, has been leading dozens of demonstrations across Jordan over the past year, demanding elected governments and fair elections. King Abdullah pledged on several occasions that the parliamentary elections will be conducted before year end, and tasked Khasawneh to speed up the reform process by drafting a new elections law. The draft law was submitted to the lower house earlier in April of this year. The draft elections law was reportedly the point of contention between Khasawneh and the authorities. The former PM wanted to defer the discussion of the law until it receives a blessing from Jordan political parties, while the King wanted the law to be finished sooner in order to hold elections. For that, the King extended the current lower house session for two more months, demanding faster performance. He made the decision when Khasawneh was on an official visit to Turkey. Khasawneh was reportedly provoked by the decision signed by his deputies without consulting with him. The PM was reprimanded in an unusually harsh letter from the monarch. The King blamed him for the slow pace of the government's work on reform-related legislation, as it was directly presented in his letter to the resigned PM. According to a copy of the official translation the King said: "Recently, I was surprised by your insistence that there is no need to extend the ordinary session of parliament, and to postpone the start of the extraordinary session by one month, as well as by the fact that you wanted to deal with a set of draft laws that are not a priority at this stage." He added that this would have meant not being able to conduct parliamentary elections this year, as promised. "During the past months, I have followed the work of the government in various fields, hoping that the government would be more efficient and active in finalising these laws, in cooperation with the Lower House, but a slow pace continued to prevail," the King said. The monarch also stressed the fact that there was no time to postpone the reform process, as the Jordanian people were promised quick achievements. "We do not have the luxury of time, nor do we have the option to postpone what we committed ourselves to do and promised our honourable people to achieve," the King said. Anger was also obvious in articles by a majority of Jordanian writers, who were competing in criticising Khasawneh and the way he submitted his resignation. "The way he presented his resignation, however, shows impatience or a hot-tempered action," Addustour columnist Maher Abu Tair said. "The premier is highly respected by a majority; however, even those who respect him were shocked by the way he presented his resignation while he is abroad, as this move was unconventional," Abu Tair noted adding that what was more shocking is that he presented his resignation through one of his ministers. Al-Arab Al-Yawm columnist Ahmed Abu Khalil provided an analysis of how the public viewed the outgoing PM's resignation. He saw it as an advantage to a PM with a "firm stance". "The public do not judge resignations based on performance, programmes implemented, achievements or failures... and other issues of concern to officials or observers. People's judgements are based on superficial criteria," said Abu Khalil. "People are used to the conventional way of PMs leaving office and knowing about it through the media". The way Khasawneh submitted his resignation surprised the public and gave the impression that he "does not care about holding this post", which was widely welcomed. Now the new PM needs to convince the public that he can speed up the reform process through achieving the elections law before the end of the parliamentary session that was extended until June. Although the majority of Jordanian columnists and analysts are showing dissatisfaction with the newcomer, they all agree that he has to work quickly to achieve reform in the Kingdom. According to Al-Ghad columnist Mohamed Abu Rumman, some justify this choice by saying that the new PM's tenure will be very short, since his key mission will be the withdrawal of the election law from the Lower House of Parliament and conducting speedy negotiations about it with the opposition, before sending it again to parliament for endorsement within a few months. "After this, the PM will recommend dissolving the parliament and holding early parliamentary elections, which will require him, according to the new constitutional amendments, to submit his resignation. The second government will hold the elections and resign in turn to leave the stage for another government after the elections. Thus, we are likely to see two governments before the end of the year or the presumed date of the upcoming parliamentary elections," Abu Rumman said. In conclusion, time will show if the new PM was able to fulfil the rather difficult task ahead, especially considering that expectations from the public and the political elite have never been this high. With the pace at which events are happening in Jordan the time to tell will be short.
