A giant step back

Back in the old days (pre 1989), political parties were banned and leftists and nationalist activists were jailed and prevented from employment. Free to organize and act were the members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who colluded with the state to make it look like we had some semblance of pluralism. Since 1999, when the Hamas leadership was expelled from Jordan, and more since 2005, in the aftermath of the hotel bombings, there has been a weakened relationship between the Islamists and the state.

But it looks like we are seeing a change. The Islamists and the government are playing footsie again, with the head of the Mukhabarat (mullah Nader's brother) meeting with both the heads of the IAF and Hamas. Islamists can't hide their glee at getting in the good graces of the government again.

So, now the government is free to arrest and persecute leftist activists again. They recently arrested Saleh Abu Tawileh in Ma'an, demanding that he desist from "political criticism".

Or as Yoggi Berra said, what we have is "Déjà vu all over again".

Mixing the unmixable

Q: What happens when you mix academia, democracy and tribalism?

A: A uniquely Jordanian concoction, that is difficult to describe.

Here is the story. In Jordan, the formula for developing a local community has come to mean establishing a state university somewhere. These universities are not viewed as a source of community development because they are beacons of knowledge, learning, research or innovation. No. They are simply an excuse to hire janitors, gardeners, secretaries and drivers. And, oh yes, faculty members. So the government, under pressure from local MP’s and community leaders, has established a number of universities in areas where unemployment is high. One such university is Tafileh Technical University.

In order to keep up the pretence that such universities are supposed to be real universities, respected academicians are appointed to head them. In the case of Tafileh Tech, Sultan Abu Orabi, a prominent chemist was appointed to head the institution. Of course, this is a problem. Not because he is a bad scientist or administrator. Not because he is bad in dealing with people. The problem is that he is from Salt, not Tafileh. The people of Tafileh view the university as being “theirs”, and it is taken from them by “the other”. Tafileh notables who lobbied to establish this university make no effort at understanding or explaining that the university is a nationally funded institution; that reason and decency require that the best people should be hired there, irrespective of their origin, and that their sons and daughters studying at the university will be better served with competent staff holding responsibility. Now the problems start.

The local community, especially their notables, views the university as being a source of benefits for them and their constituents. Thus, they try to interfere with the hiring policy of the university and even interfere in the academic affairs of the institutions. The president, under the false impression that he should uphold academic standards and fiscal responsibility tries to control the tide of requests. Almost all succumb to the pressure, and all universities are overstaffed with administrative employees who have nothing to do.

But at some point, the president decides he has to say no, raising the fury of the deputies and local leaders.

Apparently, Abu Orabi fired a driver at the university (obviously for a good reason). So, the driver with a group of his relatives crashes the graduation ceremony at the university, assaulting the president and the deputy governor. The police intervene with tear gas, and a large number of people (including Abu Orabi) end up in the hospital.

The police take the fired driver into custody, and under pressure from local MP’s and dignitaries, he is released on bail the same night. Insaf Khawaldeh, a deputy from Tafileh demanded that Abu Orabi should be fired. Here, many people conclude that the driver and his gang didn’t act alone. He wouldn’t dare unless prominent people promised to protect him, which is what happened.

Next, members of the Adwan tribe, to which Abu Orabi belongs, stage an attack on the home of a former Tafileh deputy named Abdallah Akaileh, who they believed was an instigator of the attack on Abu Orabi. They fired about 70 rounds at Akaileh’s house, damaging windows and roof tiles. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. On the other hand, Tafilis in Amman are also rioting over the incident.

It is not clear how this story will end. If it is interesting enough, I will keep you posted.

So, there you have it. The witches brew of academia, tribalism and democracy in a stinky concoction that only Jordanians can manage to put together. Hold your nose and drink up.

A new public meetings law

One refreshing aspect of Mullah Nader’s government is that it has stopped all pretences of being liberal, progressive or enlightened, let alone responsive to public sentiment. Here, we are dealing with imposed reality, unplugged.

So, it was surprising to see that the government sent a new draft law for public meetings to parliament. To my more naïve western readers, yes, there is a public meetings law. For any public gathering you need permission from the governor. Usually, the governor summarily says no. He doesn’t have to say why.

There have been heavy public demands to reform this law, specifically towards simply needing to inform the governor so that he can make security arrangements. However, the new law is very similar to the old one. Cosmetic modifications were introduced; lowering the period of time needed to inform the governor and excluding some non-political gatherings from its provisions.

Of course, opposition activists are unhappy with this new law. Yesterday, they tried to persuade the parliamentary “public freedoms” committee to introduce more liberal changes. According to one member of the committee, Abdelraouf Rawabdeh, he tried to change the committees mind towards the needed changes. However, it seems that the committee didn’t like the activists’ attitude. So, they left the most important provisions the way they are.

Of course, the whole approach of these activists was wrong. Instead of trying to persuade the committee with logic, they should have invited them to a mansaf. Don’t they know how things work in Jordan? Sheesh.

So, because the activists were not nice enough, we will get a new public meetings law that is the same as the old one. It is not because we live in a police state. It is because the activists didn’t say “pretty please with a cherry on top”.

Human rights: theory and practice

Jordanian university curricula are often accused of being too theoretically oriented, with little applied demonstrations. Not true for Yarmouk University.

For example, the university runs a course in human rights. As part of the course, somebody thought (for some inexplicable reason) that it might be a good idea to hear some opposition views on what is going on in Jordan.

So, they invited Fakher Da’as, who is running the Dhabahtoona campaign for student rights. So, five minutes before the guy is supposed to give his presentation, the head of the political science department informs the course instructor that the university administration has banned the lecture. See, this is the practical side of the course.

And things had been going so well. The university had been basking in the glory of the king’s visit last week. In it, he had exhorted the students to get involved in politics and promised that nobody will persecute them for their activism. Radio host Mohammad Wakeel gushed at how the wise and foresighted leadership of the university president was the reason why the king chose Yarmouk University as a venue to put out his message. Wakeel was happy with the university president because the said president made sure that Wakeel’s son would be one of the select students who met the king during the visit.

Part of Wakeel’s radio show involves an exhaustive reading of newspaper headlines in the morning. For some strange reason, he forgot to read the headline on this story this morning, even though it was reported in Al Ghad. It must have been an unintentional oversight.

So there you have it. In a nutshell, we can see the disconnect between theory and practice, professional journalism and hack journalism, sloganeering and reality. A perfect representation of what Jordan is today.

You’ve come a long way (back), baby

For a government that started its tenure promising to establish “freedom square”, it is pathetic to see how far back it slid towards authoritarianism.

This process probably started when they hid behind the parliament to enact a new press law that allowed the jailing of journalists (later “fixed” by the senate).

This was followed by the use of endless legal red tape to stifle the awaited launching of a new independent TV station known as ATV. After months of delays and excuses, the owners have finally given up and sold to new investors. Let’s hope they will be successful, both in launching and in living up to viewers’ expectations.

Along with the ATV debacle, there was the jailing of Ahmad Oweidi Abbadi for publishing some uncomfortable views on his website.

Now, the lust to control information and ideas seems to be spreading to electronic media in general. Today, the assistant director of the press and publications department has said that electronic newspapers will henceforth be under the supervision of the antiquated department. This supervision will also include websites as well (presumably including blogs).

Did I mention what a wise and compassionate government we have?

Political savvy, IAF style

Yesterday hundreds of people from the town of Mleih, south of Madaba, staged a protest against rising prices, corruption and falling standards of living. It is interesting to note that reports on this do not indicate the involvement of any political party in the organization or staging of this protest. Of course, this is typical.

So, what is the head of Jordan’s largest political party involved with these days? Well, he is busy halfheartedly denying saying that “those who live in […] marginalized regions are, with all due respect, people that are less knowledgeable and less educated, culturally and politically, thus they should not be the majority in the parliament”. This statement has infuriated many Jordanians, largely because this is not true. Apparently, Bani Irshaid believes that only less knowledgeable people would refrain from voting for his backward looking party. His denial is mostly an attack on Al Rai, which reported the original interview published by Jordan Business in English. Why not attack Jordan Business? Because Al Rai is an easier target and because they probably realize that Jordan Business has a recording of the interview. In a pathetic play of words, he denies insulting Bedouins, which is true. He insulted people who live in marginalized areas.

But my question is simple. Who has more political acumen? People peacefully demonstrating for better living conditions in rural areas or politicians who turn their back on the needs of such people and accuse them of backwardness?

A good night for the National Democratic Front

The National Democratic Front is a coalition of four leftist and Arabist parties. They fielded a few candidates for mayoral and city council seats. Thus far, they have won the mayoral seats in Karak (a major coup) and Ain al Basha. They have also won seats on city councils in Amman, Karak, Zerqa and Kufranja. A number of the mayoral and city council seats have yet to be decided. Even if things stop here, they have done well.

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UPDATE: Their mayoral candidate in Burma (Jarash) also won.

Lady victory

Rana Hajaya has been elected as mayor of the dusty little town of Al Hassa. Al Hasa’s claim to fame is that it is the location of a major phosphate mine. The town’s residents are tribal and working class people.

Al Hajaya previously served as mayor of this town, which doesn’t seem to need a quota system to chose a lady who they believe is best fit for the job.

Good for them

IAF withdraws from the municipal elections

As it has suggested, the IAF has announced that it is withdrawing from the elections. I have never heard of anybody withdrawing from elections during the voting process. Maybe they were hoping things would go their way, despite all the previous indications to the contrary. The government says that the withdrawal is illegal, and would continue the voting and counting process as scheduled.

The IAF statement cited voting by military personnel as the reason for withdrawing. The statement says that the personnel voted by saying the candidate’s name openly. This mechanism is available for people who are illiterate, but is sometimes abused by people who sell their votes. Later, the IAF head, Zaki Bani Irshaid changed this claim, saying that the military personnel showed up with pre-filled ballot cards. They had months to get their story straight, and they still blew it.

Other claims by Bani Irshaid include allowing multiple votes for specific candidates, shooting and fights at some voting places, and throwing out of IAF representatives out of “some” voting stations.

Candidates are allowed representatives at each box, where they can keep track of who has voted, and object to multiple voting. In most districts, there are more than two candidates. So such abuses would be expected to have been objected to not only by IAF candidates, but by the candidates who are not getting this supposed government patronage. Voters for Irbid Mayoral candidate Abdelnasser Bani Hani (not IAF) are openly concerned that the government is throwing its weight behind Abdelraouf Tell. It will be interesting if Bani Hani and Nabil Kofahi (the IAF candidate) converge on a similar story.

More later.

Municipal elections today

Country wide elections are being held today in accordance with the recently passed municipalities’ law. The government insists that it will be impartial, while many observers are worried about government interference. Specifically, two issues are cited. The first is that registration committees allowed for large scale vote transfers for specific candidates. Aggrieved candidates had a chance to object to any voter transfer, but few did because they were all involved in transferring voter registrations, and nobody wanted to rock the boat.

The second issue is the decision to allow military personnel to vote. There is concern that the soldiers will be ordered to vote for specific candidates. It is not obvious how this order can be enforced. Anyway, the IAF is complaining about it, as per the usual whining. They are threatening to withdraw from the elections today. Presumably they will withdraw if they lose. What courage!

Some people are complaining about the lack of substance in the campaigning, and the dominance of personal and tribal considerations rather than any programs. It is a subtle reference to the weakness of participation of political parties. The political parties blame the one vote election law. In reality, few political parties are interested in the details of local government or the day to day problems of people. They are more interested in liberating Palestine and Iraq, and not picking up garbage, building parks or paving streets.

There is a lot of interest by women in this election. The 20% quota has energized women’s organizations, and I think that a fair number will win outside the quota system.

More later.

Shooting the messenger

A recent opinion poll (summary here) by the Jordan Social Research Center has been the focus of some debate. The Islamists made hay over it because it showed that people for the most part would not like to see them getting in power. So, they shoot the messenger.

Of course, the results are similar to previous polls conducted by the center, and are not too different from those conducted by the rival Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan. They are not different from actual results from elections, either, or from my own unscientific empirical observations. But as they say: “denial is not a river in Egypt”.

So, the heretical results of the new poll show that only 17% of people want to vote for the IAF in the next elections. These results also show that most people are happy with the one vote election law, and given the choice, would only use one of their votes. This is what is really angering to the Islamists and their leftist and Arabist allies.

In 1989, the Islamists won 22 out of 80 seats available in the parliament at the time. Newly reintroduced elections, general disenchantment with the economy at the time, the fact that the Islamists were the only legal political organization for the previous 30 years helped them in achieving this result. However, the multiple vote law used at the time helped immensely in magnifying their voting effectiveness. While voters voting for independents wasted their votes by distributing them among a large pool of candidates, the Islamists voted exclusively for the MB ticket.

Realizing the ability of the Islamists to abuse the system, the 1993 elections were conducted based on the one-vote law. While the Islamists were unhappy, they went along. In 1997, they boycotted the elections in protest over the one vote issue. In 2003, they ran and won 17 of the 115 contested seats.

The poll results anger the Islamists because, 18 years after winning 27.5% of seats in the parliament through abusing the voting system, they think that they are the only qualified representative of the Jordanian people, and they feel that any system that denies them their inalienable right to be the custodians of the Jordanian people is undemocratic.

In reality, people support the one vote law for precisely this reason. They don’t want the Islamists to gain power. But maybe if they talk about normalization some more, people will change their mind.

Running scared

It is difficult to explain the recent behavior of the lower house of parliament in ways other than fear. After failing to pressure the government into extending the life of the house, they passed the municipalities law that allowed them to run for municipal councils as well as the parliament (the senate overturned this). Obviously, they wanted to hedge their bets.

Then, they passed the press law, and yesterday the passed a new political parties’ law, which requires parties to have 500 founding members. This will threaten the existence of many of the existing political parties that are too small to fulfill this requirement.

It seems that the MP’s want to be immune from criticism (the press law), and don’t want to deal with the threat posed by organized political parties in the elections. Obviously, they hope to sabotage political reform so that they can get reelected during the upcoming elections under the old rules that are favorable to them.

The problem is that predators become more vicious when they sense fear.

Parliament and the press

As part of long awaited reform in Jordan, the government sent a new press and publications law to the parliament. The parliament was already unhappy with the press, with the head of the parliament, Abdulhadi Majali, threatening them with tough legislation if they keep criticizing the MP’s. This developed later into MP’s actually beating up reporters in the parliament.

So, the parliament took the opportunity to live up to its threat. They modified the legislation to allow prohibitively high fines and jailing of journalists for “press crimes”. In what seems to have been a childish atmosphere, MP’s taunted the press during the session, refusing to revisit the issue of jailing. The legislation passed and is now in the hands of the senate, where journalists hope that the legislation will be fixed.

Now, in my humble opinion, any politician who goes out of his way to antagonize the press is a complete idiot. Columnists are having a field day ridiculing the parliament, at a particularly interesting time, considering that the chamber will be dissolved soon and new elections are to be held.

Some of the commentary is blunt and straightforward. Samih Maitah published a long laundry list of parliamentary excesses and failures, whereas Jihad Momani (who was jailed for republishing THE CARTOONS) accused the MP’s directly of disregarding the national interest. This line of debate is more subtle but has devastating implications.

Fleshing this out, Salameh Dir’awi (Al Arab al Yawm) argues that Millennium development funds worth over 500 million dollars may be on the line, as granting countries may view the new law as a retreat from the reform that these funds are to reward.

Another important point that is being made (in a somewhat subtle manner) concerns the future makeup of the parliament. Most agree that the current election law will end up producing a parliament similar to this one. Given the anti-democratic nature of the parliament, the message goes, this is unacceptable. So, what is required is a new election law. Now, given that the parliament has proven itself untrustworthy in dealing with public freedoms’ legislation, a new law should be passed without their input (as a temporary law, which most people find distasteful but may accept given the alternative).

So, the pressure is on to produce a new election law to revamp the make up of the parliament, without them having a say in the legislation.

Did I mention that angering the press is stupid?

Elections this year

King Abdullah today announced that municipal and parliamentary elections will be held on schedule this year. He called on parliament to move forward with laws affecting the political development of the country. Judging by the current behavior of parliament with regard to the press law, substantial changes in legislation on the election, political parties’ or the public assembly laws are probably not going to happen. Of course, outside pressures may induce them to change their minds.

Five months ago, when the press created the “election delay” issue, I predicted that the elections will not be delayed. I pledged that I would change the header on the blog if they were. Actually, I was looking forward for a chance to change it. It is kind of pretentious, don’t you think?

Well, maybe next time.

Irbid town meeting (on the internet)

Ammon news has a report on a new park that is supposed to be established in Irbid. Last summer, the king visited the city and donated seven million dinars for the project. Since then, little has happened, the previous mayor (Walid Masri) was fired (as I mentioned at the time), and the area designated for the park has been reduced from 244 dunums (24.4 hectares) to 177 dunums. Until now, the only visible achievement has been the laying of the foundation stone by the king.

What is more interesting than the report has been the comment section has evolved into a virtual town meeting. Many people are using their real names, and are either impressed by the achievements of the previous mayor (and are against the current mayor) or openly opposed to him. Some of what is said is quite revealing.

One comment states that the ministry of public works owed the municipality 4.5 million dinars, of which an installment was due to be paid on August 6, four days after the Masri was dismissed. The new mayor “forgave” the ministry of the money, with the obvious implication that Masri was removed to achieve this result. One reason cited for why the area of the planned park has been reduced has been the lack of funds needed to confiscate the extra lands.

Most comments support Masri, and assert that the activities and services in the city have deteriorated since the appointment of the new mayor. A joint comment signed by 16 city councilmen says that work on the park project slowed down after the appointment of the new mayor. They imply that the story was written to harm Masri “for electoral purposes”. Other commentators accuse the new mayor of being an underling to the minister of municipalities, who held a grudge against Masri and wanted to sabotage his work. They assert that he expanded his office and purchased fancy new furniture even as he claimed the city was broke and services declined. They accuse him and his administration of misusing city vehicles for personal purposes, even giving details of where the cars go.

Others attack Masri, claiming that he wanted to raise the prices of land in Nueimeh by encouraging development towards that area. Other accusations include nepotism.

Anyway, I find it to be a riveting and refreshing debate. My vote is with Masri.

The new municipalities’ law

Yesterday the parliament approved the new municipalities’ law, after some modifications over what the government had proposed. The current law was enacted in 2001, with the stated purpose of improving the effectiveness of local government. It is viewed as undemocratic because the mayors and half of the municipal council members are appointed by the government.

The new law is an attempt to remedy this flaw. Now, the mayors and councils are fully elected by the public (except in Amman, which will retain its current formula). The government had attempted to regain some control through the appointment of a city manager. This, we were told, was in order to ensure that the previous problems faced by municipalities would not recur. These included temptations to overstaff and to forgo tax collection from key constituents, which left most municipalities in dire financial situations. Anyway, the parliament approved the idea of a city manager, but this person will be appointed (and fired) by the council itself and subject to the approval of the minister of municipalities. This modification gutted the concept of much of its meaning. It is also a lean towards democracy. Time will tell if this was a prudent decision.

Other features in the law include a 20% quota for women in the council seats. The mechanism of how they will be chosen is not obvious yet. The deputies allowed for joint membership in both the parliament and in municipal councils. Fahed Khitan views this as selfish. To me, the idea does not seem to be practical, but this is up to the voters now to decide.

One feature is that the mayors of the larger municipalities are required to hold bachelors degrees at a minimum, while the mayors of the smaller cities will be required to hold the high school certifications (tawjihi). Some view this as undemocratic, as it runs against the concept of equal opportunity.

Anyway, the law stipulates that new elections need to be conducted within six months of the approval of the legislation. The clock will start ticking after approval of the senate and ratification by the king.

New elections! What could be more fun for political junkies?

A misframed debate

The National Guidance Committee of the parliament has approved the draft press law and submitted it to the full house for debate. This law has been contentious for a long time, and the press is unhappy with the current version.

The source of unhappiness is that the law does not prohibit jailing of journalists for press crimes. It merely states that “Taking into consideration other legislation, it is prohibited to arrest or punish by jail as the result of expressing an opinion through saying, writing or any other form of expression”. The term “taking into consideration” means that other laws that do prescribe jail sentences can be enforced. It turns out that there are 24 of these laws, including article 150 of the criminal code.

So, should people be jailed for expression crimes? I think that there is a problem in framing this question. I would reframe it as following: are there cases where expression should be criminalized? If so, what are these crimes? The Jordan Press Association should not ask for immunity from jail for “crimes of expression”. It should demand that there are no such things as “crimes of expression”.

It is unfortunate that we are still having this type of debate, but many people would agree that Jordanian society is not ready for the type of free expression that exists in real democracies. Our opposition parties, particularly the IAF, are openly opposed to all sorts of freedom of expression. During the last budget debate, IAF deputy Ali Utoum demanded that a statement by leftist deputy Mustafa Shneikat be scrapped from the minutes. Shneikat suggested that there should be separation between state and religion, which Utoum characterized as unconstitutional. This was based on the grounds that the constitution says that the religion of the state is Islam (whatever that means).

Given that people want democracy, as long as nobody says anything controversial (or interesting), there should be a critical review of all 24 laws in question. Even if the provisions in them are acceptable (I sincerely doubt it in most cases), then they should be spelled out, and vague wording should be clarified, so that everybody knows what is meant by “elongation of the tongue”, “insulting the dignity of the state”, “inciting sectarian strife or encouraging conflict between communities and various elements of the nation” or “insulting the fathers of the monotheistic religions (as they are dead, we will never know what they might construe as an insult)”. It would be better just to scrap all of these provisions rather that to try and define them. The vagueness of these definitions is just as chilling to freedom of expression as potential jail sentences, if not more. A cynical person would conclude that this is the whole point.

Why is everybody so afraid? Let’s do it!

Par for the course

Yesterday, a group of MP’s physically assaulted reporters who were covering their activities. The reporters had photographed a fight between two deputies. Apparently, this angered some of the deputies, who view the press with suspicion. The head of the parliament had threatened the press recently. MP’s view press coverage as being one-sided.

The major dailies have decided to boycott covering the activities of parliament until an apology is issued. Of course, this will hurt the public interested in the debate over the budget. Yeah, right.

If the MP's are so worried about how the public views them, I have a better idea.

Stop being so retarded.

I hate repeating myself…

but sometimes, there is little choice. The latest public opinion poll again shows that people are little interested in “political development”, and are more interested in economic issues. The poll indicates that 33.4% view unemployment as the major problem that needs to be dealt with, 26% place poverty as the major issue, followed by inflation (25.5%), poverty (23.5%), poor living conditions (5.4%), and corruption (4.4%). Political development is not a concern for the average person. A parallel set of data for “opinion leaders” places political development at a whopping 7%.

As I said a year ago, when a previous poll was released, political parties have not been able to convince people that they have a viable alternative to current policies. Nothing has changed since then. While political parties have been jockeying for issues related to their own interests, they have done little to persuade people that there is a link between politics and economic policy or performance.

I wonder if I will have to write the same thing next December.

New minister for political development

I had decided not to comment on the limited cabinet reshuffle today. However, the choice of the new minister for political development, Mohammad Oran, is too interesting to let slip by. He is an Arabist political activist, who previously served as a MP from the Tafila district, and as the head of the Jordanian Medical Association.

He is a member of the “Arab Lands Party”, which describes its principles here. They believe that the “nation’s” identity is its Arabism, that Islam is the religion on the nation, that Jordan is part of the Arab nation, all of Palestine (from the river to the sea) is Arab, that peace can be achieved if others concede the rights of Arabs to a good life and sovereignty over their land, respect for international legitimacy (?), rejection of military groupings and alliances, and belief in political pluralism and public freedoms.


Oran on the right burning an American flag
(image from Ammon News).

As with most leftist and Arabist opposition figures, Oran has had no problem getting in line with the Islamists on various issues. This has included a call to expel the Israeli ambassador and the annulment of the peace treaty. He was chosen to be spokesman for the National Coalition for Political Parties. So, last June he was a party to a meeting between the leaders of political parties and the prime minister, haggling over laws pertaining to political freedoms (political parties, the election law and the anti terrorism law). During the meeting he also called for the release of the Zarqawi deputies, before they were tried.

Oran will now share in the formulation of political freedoms' laws and policies. It will be interesting to keep track of him.