ISLAMISTS PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L AMMAN 000832 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/13/2018 TAGS: PGOV KDEM KISL JO SUBJECT: ISLAMISTS PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF POLITICAL PARTY LAW CHANGES REF: A. 07 AMMAN 1183 ¶B. AMMAN 535 Classified By: Ambassador David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: The Islamic Action Front (IAF) has led a group of parliamentarians in filing a petition which suggests undoing several provisions of the political parties law passed in April 2007. The proposed amendments would allow at least some of Jordan's smaller, irrelevant political parties to continue functioning. It is unlikely that the petition will gain traction, but MPs may figure that they have nothing to lose by amending a statute that will change little in Jordan's political scene. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) On March 7, thirty MPs submitted a formal petition requesting amendments to the political parties law passed in April 2007 (Ref A). Note: That law gave Jordan's small parties one year to retroactively register five hundred "founding" members in at least five provinces, in the hopes of creating national parties which are issue-based and which carry more political weight than the current constellation of Jordan's tiny, personality-driven parties. End Note. ¶3. (U) The petition was drafted by the IAF and endorsed by other "opposition" deputies of various political stripes. It proposed: supervision of political parties by the Ministry of Political Development instead of the Ministry of Interior; a reduction in the required number of "founders" to 100; and a change to make the current requirement that founders come from at least five governorates optional. According to Article Ninety-Five of Jordan's constitution, the lower house must now vote on the proposal. If it passes, the petition will be forwarded to the "registration and opinion" department in the Prime Ministry, which will draft amendments to the 2007 law. ¶4. (SBU) On March 12, the Higher Coordination Committee of Opposition Parties, a group which is dominated by the IAF but which also contains various smaller opposition elements such as the Jordanian Ba'ath Party, issued a statement in support of amending the law. The press statement read by Fu'ad Dabbour of the Ba'ath Party (who acts as the committee's spokesman) praised MPs who signed the petition. Dabbour said that "if these loopholes and negative points remain (in the law),they would negatively affect political development, the democratic process, and partisan life to a large extent" and encouraged MPs to "purify the law of its flaws." The committee has requested a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss proposed changes to the statute. ¶5. (C) Tareq Khoury, a moderate, pro-reform MP who is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from the petitioners, nevertheless believes that the law needs to be amended. "I think there is a seventy-percent chance that the law will change," he told poloff. Khoury's reasoning was that in some districts (particularly Amman),supporters of political parties were perceived to be a "swing vote" that may have tipped the balance in favor of certain candidates in recent parliamentary elections. Keen to either curry favor with political parties or thank them for their support, Khoury believes that MPs will change a law that was already suspected of having limited impact (Ref B). ¶6. (C) Comment: The fact of the IAF's sponsorship makes it unlikely that pro-government members of the lower house will ultimately allow the petition to move forward. Yet at the same time, MPs have little to lose from relaxing the restrictions of the political parties law, which has been bashed by many as "undemocratic," and assessed by media outlets and many Embassy contacts as ultimately ineffective in achieving its goals. Since few in Amman's mostly cynical political elite expect the law to achieve its goal of producing cohesive, national, relevant parties any time soon, parliamentarians may judge that there is no harm in amending it - they will only gain friends and supporters who could come in handy in a close race. End Comment. HALE