PARLIAMENT SPEAKER MAJALI'S NEW PARTY: FIRST STEP

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 000857 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/26/2019 TAGS: PGOV KDEM JO SUBJECT: PARLIAMENT SPEAKER MAJALI'S NEW PARTY: FIRST STEP OR LAST GASP? REF: 07 AMMAN 4885 AMMAN 00000857 001.4 OF 002 Classified By: Ambassador R. Stephen Beecroft for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: For over a year, lower house speaker Abdulhadi Al-Majali has been preparing to launch a new pro-government political party. He has again hit the airwaves to drum up public enthusiasm, and contacts tell us that the registration paperwork will be filed in weeks. The timing may be linked to decreased parliamentary support for Majali, as evidenced by a new bloc specifically designed to challenge his leadership. In separate but related parliamentary developments, the entire agriculture committee resigned due to a personality dispute, and the trial of a journalist for slandering parliament is moving ahead. End Summary. Majali's Party Gearing Up -------------- ¶2. (C) For over a year, a group of MPs led by lower house speaker Abdulhadi Al-Majali has been slowly moving toward forming themselves as a pro-government political party. The group, which calls itself the National Trend, is composed primarily of tribal East Banker deputies opposed to reform. Jamal Iqteish, a businessman and Majali's political representative in Aqaba, told poloff that the required provincial branch offices have NOW been established and that the paperwork was being finalized for submission to the Interior Ministry within weeks. According to Iqteish, lack of funding has been the primary reason for the delay in the party's launch. He noted that many potential donors were waiting to see if Majali's efforts had legs. ¶3. (SBU) Majali explained in a March 30 interview with moderate daily Al-Ghad the need for a moderate, pro-government political party to counter the "worrying gap" between the highly organized Islamic Action Front, which holds six of the 110 seats in Parliament, and Jordan's other fractious political parties, which hold none. Contacts in parliament, however, suggest that Majali is pushing forward with his plans for a political party in response to the steady erosion of his political base. Several MPs pointed to Majali's recently floated idea of repealing the five percent "culture tax" on media advertising as pandering and see it as a desperate effort to drum up public support for another term as speaker. New Bloc Formed -------------- ¶4. (C) In an apparent attempt to challenge Majali's leadership, fifteen MPs announced on March 24 that they were forming a new caucus, to be called the "National Democratic Bloc." It is composed of nominal leftists and tribal independents who failed to obtain leadership positions despite their inclusion in Majali's National Trend bloc. These National Democratic bloc MPs announced that their political program would be forthcoming as soon as the group decided on an organizing principle. It has no formal leadership as yet but will likely be headed informally by former Amman mayor Mamdouh Al-Abbadi. In a meeting with poloff, Abbadi barely hid the opportunistic nature of the bloc, admitting that its raison d'etre is to challenge Majali's leadership and nothing more. Agriculture Committee Resigns -------------- ¶5. (U) The entire agriculture committee in Jordan's parliament resigned from their assignments on March 25 in a protest against the committee's chairman after Majali's failed attempt at mediation. Committee members accused the chairman, Wasfi Rawashdeh, of making decisions without consulting them. In accordance with lower house rules, all seats on the committee will remain empty until new members are selected in the next ordinary session in October. Rawashdeh, a member of the young, pro-reform, business-oriented Ikha bloc, received his chairmanship under a November 2008 agreement with Majali's supporters. Ikha contacts note that the row was strictly a non-policy related conflict of personalities and ambitions but had nonetheless resulted in a split in Ikha about how to handle the situation. Comment -------------- ¶6. (C) Majali's efforts to form a moderate, pro-government party are in theory the very leap forward that Jordanian voters and the political elite have been hungering for (Ref AMMAN 00000857 002.2 OF 002 A). Unfortunately, Majali's efforts are likely driven by his well-known ambition for higher office in general and the prime minister's position in particular. In that sense, Majali may ultimately set back the cause of national political parties by building his new bloc as a top-down, personality-driven party rather than a policy-based grassroots movement. Visit Embassy Amman's Website http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ Beecroft