Badran meets his critics

Over in Jordan, Prime Minister Adnan Badran (who still has not been granted confidence by Parliament, a month into his administration) had a testy meeting with the Parliamentary bloc which has publicly declared its intention to vote against him - now up to 45 MPs.   

Badran painted the difficult meeting as a valuable exercise in dialogue which demonstrated his open-ness to competing points of view. 

A member of what MP Abdullah Akaylah is calling "the movement to revoke confidence" described the encounter as recalling the atmosphere of April 1989 - when violent riots broke out all over the country, a political crisis which ultimately led to the democratic opening and free and contested elections of November 1989 (amazingly, without an American occupation of Iraq anywhere to be seen!).   Some of their rhetoric seems to have been pretty heated - with some members reportedly questioning the "loyalties of some Cabinet members who don't know the country, even their own districts" and who run the economy "by remote control."   Another asked "who in this government represents Jordan in the face of the conspiracies directed against it by the United States and Israel?"  Yet another complained that "the government is marketing itself to foreign governments as a reformist leadership, but there is nothing reformist about it."   

In a side note, MP Khalial Attiyah demanded that the American satellite television station al-Hurra's correspondent be removed from the room before their discussions because of "his extremist and hostile position towards Jordan."  No idea what that's all about - if there's anything more to it than generic anti-American sentiment -  but al-Ghad reported it, so I do to.

At any rate, it doesn't look like Badran is getting any closer to winning over his critics. A number of MPs insisted on addressing Badran as "Prime Minister-Delegate", not as "Prime Minister."   I'm not sure how long his government can legally go on without a vote of confidence - technically, the Parliament isn't in session, and the legality of a confidence vote during an Extraordinary Session is unclear, but it isn't very healthy politically to go on like this indefinitely.   

Comments

[collounsbury]

Aardvark:
FYI AID had to spike a Dem. & Gov project planned at double digit millions due to MP hostility in general. I was actually a consultant on some private sector prep on this (tangential) - the sheer hostility was amazing.

In re continuing - well the emergency laws or temporary laws issue has dragged out forever. The chubby little fellow may think he can play this.

[Penta]

Col., what was the project?

[Nur al Cubicle]

This the an account from L'Orient-Le Jour:

A crisis has erupted between the government of Prime Minister Adnan Badran and Parliament where a majority of MPs affirm that they will not pass a vote of confidence confirming a cabinet which, according to them, includes "suspect" ministers. This group of ministers is headed by Finance Minister Bassem Awadallah, who is very unpopular in Jordan. Mr. Awadallah was jettisoned by the previous government but was back in force less than two months later when the Badran government was formed in April.

During a stormy meeting between legislators and Mr. Badran on Tuesday, MPs unequivocally demanded that the Prime Minister eject Mr. Awadallah along with ministers close to him or else they would not pass a vote of confidence. The MPs believe that this group of ministers are foreign to Jordan, that they don't have credibility, that they don't understand the people, Jordanian society, or the situation of the underprivileged and they told this to the Prime Minister, said Mr. Abbadi, a former prime minister and an eminent Member of Parliament.

A political analyst reveals that as far as he is concerned, the situation is a political first for Jordan: ferocious opposition to Mr. Awadallah and his associates has transformed loyalists into opponents. When the Prime Minister asked Parliament to review his program before voting on it, independent Islamist MP Abdallah Akayleh thundered: We will not pass a vote of confidence, even if they give us a program put forward by Omar ibn al-Khattab himself. [al-Khattab was the Second Caliph, reknown for his equity].

A written petition was handed to the Prime Minister calling upon him to shake up his government. The PM promised a solution to the crisis. Parliament is on vacation but the majority of MPs requested an extraordinary session, says Speaker Abdel Hadi Majali. However, the King may exercise his perogative in stirking the vote of confidence from the parliamentary agenda. The appointment to the premiersip of Mr. Badran, a respected 69 year-old academician, was generally perceived in Jordan as an acceleration of the process of democratization.