KING READS RIOT ACT TO PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT, THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 006612

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/17/2010
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON JO
SUBJECT: KING READS RIOT ACT TO PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT, THE
GOVERNING CLASS

Classified By: Charge David Hale, Reasons 1.4 (B) & (D)


1. (C) Summary. The King convened Jordan's political class
on August 17 to an open meeting and read them the riot act.
In particular, he demanded more responsible and constructive
behavior by members of parliament, who continue to threaten
to block the King's and government's reform agenda. This
hastily arranged event, on the eve of the King's trip to
Russia, reflects the King's growing frustration at the
inability of parliament and cabinet to cooperate and perform.
It may be prepatory to dissolution of parliament this fall
and early elections, now scheduled for 2007, based on a new,
temporary electoral law. In our initial contacts, ministers
and MPs said they accepted the criticism and felt chastened,
but the underlying political problems stymieing the reform
agenda remain unchanged. End summary.


2. (C) At short notice, on August 17, Jordan's King Abdullah
convoked most of Jordan's political class, including cabinet
ministers, leading members of parliament, senior advisors,
and former prime ministers. The purpose was to give voice to
his increasing levels of frustration with domestic political
rancor. Attendees described to Charge a sobering and
unexpected event charged with the King's controlled anger.
Immediately after dropping this political bomb, the King
boarded a plane for a postponed visit to Russia. The text of
his remarks was released to the press.


3. (C) The King said he had asked the executive and
legislative branches to work cooperatively as a team, but
instead found them engaged in a "tug-of-war and
arm-twisting." MPs may not be satisfied with the
government's performance, he said, but they should know that
Jordanians are dissatisfied with the deputies. He complained
that whenever Jordan faced a problem, each party engaged in
blaming others or standing aside, forcing the King to
intervene, "as if responsibility is his own to shoulder."
However, it was unacceptable for the King to have to resolve
"every detail" or shoulder all responsibility alone. He
criticized officials who blamed him anytime their action had
negative results. The King was especially harsh toward
former senior officials: "everyone of you should know that
when you leave office, you are not being exempted from
responsibility. On the contrary, you are a reserve soldier
who should have a sense of responsibility toward the homeland
that honored you with such a high position." To say that
everything is good while you are in authority, and then claim
all is wrong when you are out of office, he added, is
unacceptable. (These comments were directed at several
former prime ministers.) Noting that criticism is easy, the
King said few had come forward with alternative solutions.
Citing unemployment as a subject of political criticism, the
King said in fact the problem was not a lack of jobs but a
culture in which Jordanians refused to accept vocational or
manual work, hoping instead "wasta" (favoritism) would win
them a desk job. He also took a swipe at West Amman's salon
rumor mill, which spread gossip and false news to the foreign
press to serve personal agendas, as did Jordan's weekly
scandal sheets. Denying once again that there was a hidden
agenda to resettle Palestinians in Jordan, the King said the
best defense against making Jordan an alternative homeland to
the Palestinians ) and he said there was no such plot ) was
teamwork in the effort to continue along the path of reform,
modernization, and development, and passage of the
legislation needed to do so.


4. (C) While the immediate provocation for the King's
comments is unclear, his frustration level had increased
markedly of late. He had sacrificed his close aide, Finance
Minister Awadallah, and strengthened the conservative East
Bank wing of the cabinet to satisfy parliamentary opinion,
but found he had only whetted the deputies' appetite for
noisy opposition. His two personal priorities for the brief
summer session, passage of an anti-corruption bill and
ratification of the Article 98 agreement, had met with
ill-informed but effective opposition. He had heard the
salon circuit talk that his handling of parliament had shown
him to disadvantage. The two royal commissions working on
the next phase of reform, regionalization and the national
agenda, were at loggerheads. On the King's behalf, the
Deputy Director of General Intelligence has been trying
unsuccessfully to mediate between the heads of the two
bodies, the authoritarian Senate President al-Rifai and the
liberal Deputy Prime Minister al-Muasher. Key members of the
national agenda commission were engaged in a public fight
over whether or not they could consider proposals requiring
constitutional amendments ) a debate which reignited popular
fears that the entire exercise was a U.S.-driven effort to
turn Jordan over to the Palestinians.


5. (C) Two of the recipients of the monarch's ire, perhaps
not surprisingly, told Charge the next day the King was
right. Ex-Speaker and current MP Saad Srour said he hoped
the King's remarks would provoke MPs to debate national
issues more constructively, and get them to focus less on
their personal positions and the exchange of favors. He also
hoped the existing parliament would pass a new electoral law
that would produce a parliament more responsive to political
programs, and less subject to personal agendas. But if it
failed to do so, Srour recalled that every time Jordan had
changed its electoral law, it was done on the basis of a
"temporary law" ) i.e., a royal decree - and while
parliament was dissolved; sitting MPs were simply unlikely
to reform themselves out of office. Minister for Government
Performance al-Ma'aytah told Charge the King's obvious fury
was directed at the cabinet as much as at the parliament, and
she acknowledged that the cabinet had drifted in August into
inaction and internal bickering. Another MP, Abdul Karim
al-Dughmi and a major opposition force in parliament to the
King, was less contrite. However, he did expect that the
King's tongue-lashing would produce a greater measure of
cooperation when parliament returns.


6. (C) Comment: The King accurately described the summer
political atmosphere in Jordan. Whether it was a
constructive step to give public voice to his frustrations
remains to be seen, but he has gotten everyone's attention
and distanced himself in public from a discredited political
class (the latest poll showed 8 percent popularity for the
Badran government). If parliament does not rise to his
challenge and pass legislation needed to advance Jordan's
reforms, he has also set the stage for an early dissolution
of the legislature (its natural term ends in 2007) and early
elections based on a new and as yet unscripted electoral law.
The King is well aware that such a step will be watched
closely, at home and abroad, for evidence that it is a step
forward, not backward, toward greater political participation
and representation.
HALE