ISLAMISTS, GOVERNMENT MANEUVERING IN ADVANCE OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 001936 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/06/2027 TAGS: PGOV KISL JO SUBJECT: ISLAMISTS, GOVERNMENT MANEUVERING IN ADVANCE OF ELECTIONS REF: A. AMMAN 611 ¶B. 06 AMMAN 7420 ¶C. AMMAN 1410 ¶D. AMMAN 543 ¶E. 06 AMMAN 4245 Classified By: Ambassador David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: As elections approach, the Jordanian government is preparing to help candidates opposing the Islamists, while the Islamists are debating candidate selection. They will be well-placed to exploit populist domestic issues and the unpopularity of GOJ alignment with U.S. policies. However, the Islamists will probably not compete in all the places where they enjoy strong support. End summary. The General Intelligence Directorate's Strategy -------------- -- ¶2. (C) GID Director Lt. Gen. Muhammad Dahabi told Ambassador April 24 that he expected the IAF to do well in the July 17 elections for Jordan's 99 municipal councils. Perhaps because the real power of municipal governments remains limited, he was more concerned, though, with the parliamentary election planned for late 2007. Dahabi )- who was among the advisers who unsuccessfully sought to persuade King Abdullah to postpone elections (ref A) -- said the GID would focus its resources in areas of IAF strength: East Amman, Zarqa, and Irbid. It would work to ensure that candidates opposing the IAF presented voters with strong alternatives. ¶3. (C) Dahabi is generally so upbeat about his agency's capabilities that he can be dismissive of many challenges. But on the topic of the IAF he was unusually sober. He acknowledged that the Islamists remained well-organized, and would have strong populist issues that would resonate with the street ) everything from sourness toward the country's elite, to the GOJ's unpopular alignment with American policies, to recent media coverage of "food poisoning at shawarma stands." The Islamists would also try to win points "by criticizing you," he told Ambassador, referring to IAF chief Zaki Bani Irsheid's false claims in the media that Ambassador advised tribal leaders (at a meeting that never happened) to work against the IAF, and other personal attacks. Bani Irsheid Postures in the Press -------------- ¶4. (C) With most political observers in Jordan assuming that the Islamic Action front and the General Intelligence Directorate are now engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiations over how many municipalities and seats in parliament the IAF leadership will permit its cadres to win, IAF chief Zaki Bani Irsheid has stepped up his media profile in recent weeks, aiming both at the government and at factions in his own movement. In a typically blustery interview, Bani Irsheid recently told one local newspaper he was waiting to see whether the government would "share power" with the movement, or "continue to ignore it." The government's attitude, he said, would determine whether the IAF boycotts parliamentary elections or not; and whether it puts forward its most popular leaders as candidates, or runs second-tier leaders, as it did in 2003. ¶5. (C) Informed observers regard the threat of a boycott as a bluff. Musa Keilani, an East-Banker political columnist whose family is prominent both in the Islamist movement and in the intelligence service, told polcouns that the movement's "mature" leaders view their boycott of the 1997 elections as a mistake. The younger, more radical and Palestinian elements that make up the movement's base might agitate for a boycott, but over the past year the movement's stability-minded leadership has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to rein in hot-heads -- including Bani Irsheid. However, Keilani was worried that Palestinian-Jordanian radicals would lose patience with the IAF's cautious leadership, and that a few might run as Islamist independents. If they won seats in parliament, they would be effectively "members for Khalid Mishaal." ¶6. (C) Ibrahim Gharaibeh, a columnist for the liberal Al-Ghad daily and the brother of IAF spokesman Irhael Gharaibeh, told polcouns separately that he agreed a boycott was unlikely. He estimated that the IAF right now could command "30 to 35 percent" of the vote. This would translate to about 20 of the 110 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, due to the electoral system's under-representation of urban areas, where the IAF is strongest. AMMAN 00001936 002 OF 002 IAF to Take a Dive in Some Districts? -------------- ¶7. (C) In the municipal elections, he predicted the IAF will "limit itself" and not seek mayoralties in locales that the government ) or East Bank tribal elites ) would consider "sensitive," such as Salt and Kerak. (Keilani agreed.) Instead, the Islamists will run hardest for control of the municipal governments in Zarqa and Irbid, Jordan's second and third cities. In Amman, where the government will appoint the mayor and half the municipal councilors, the Islamists would run for about 15 of the 20 elected seats, and had a good chance to win most of them. IAF Ethnic Squabbles in Zarqa, Irbid -------------- ¶8. (C) Gharaibeh said shouting matches were taking place in Zarqa and Irbid IAF chapter meetings over who the party should put forward as municipal candidates. In Irbid, Nabil Kofahi, a former mayor and East Banker, was the likely mayoral nominee, but Palestinian-Jordanian party members disliked him so such that they might decline to SUPPORT him in the municipal elections. In Zarqa, even though Palestinian-Jordanians dominate the local IAF chapter, there was squabbling between Palestinian clans. ¶9. (C) In both chapters, ethnicity, not ideology or tactics, was driving the debate, according to Gharaibeh. He suggested the security services were likely encouraging these splits. In the movement as a whole, according to Gharaibeh, the East-Bank dominated leadership of the movement retained the control it imposed last year with the help of the security services (ref B). ¶10. (C) Comment: The IAF will still be the country's best-organized party when parliamentary polls take place late this year, despite a new parties law (ref C) and (so far ineffectual) efforts to organize a pro-government political front (ref D). The IAF will have strong populist issues on its side, and any developments in the Palestinian territories or Iraq that deepen regional pessimism will further bolster the Islamists. They are not ten feet tall, however. In addition to the movement's potential ethic fault lines, IAF is vulnerable to its leaders' proclivity for public missteps, as when late last year IAF chief Zaki Bani Irsheid publicly praised Iran, or two IAF MPs' June, 2006 statements comparing victims of the November 2005 Amman bombings unfavorably with the "martyr" Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Bani Irsheid spent several months trying to back away from his statements on Iran because of widespread revulsion over Saddam's execution and its sectarian overtones, and the Zarqawi episode triggered a confrontation with the government that, in the end, left radical elements in the IAF weaker than before (ref B). Visit Amman's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ HALE