Jordan: a myth of stability put to the test?

Cam­ille Abescat. The 1952 Con­sti­tu­tion defines Jordan as a hered­it­ary and par­lia­ment­ary mon­archy. With­in this sys­tem, the fig­ure of the king is cent­ral: he holds exec­ut­ive power, which he exer­cises through the gov­ern­ment, whose mem­bers, gen­er­ally tech­no­crats with no party affil­i­ation, he also appoints and dis­misses. Legis­lat­ive power is also con­trolled by the sov­er­eign, although the­or­et­ic­ally shared with Par­lia­ment. The lat­ter is com­posed of an upper house – the Sen­ate, whose mem­bers are appoin­ted by the King – and a lower house com­posed of depu­ties. The mon­arch retains the power to dis­solve Par­lia­ment whenev­er he wishes. Roy­al powers have been strengthened since the 2016 con­sti­tu­tion­al reform. From now on, appoint­ment decrees issued by Abdul­lah II no longer need to be coun­ter­signed by the Prime Minister.

A few months before the reform pro­cess began in 2021, around 20 people were arres­ted by the secur­ity ser­vices on charges of plot­ting a coup. Among the alleged cul­prits was Prince Hamzah bin Hus­sein, the king’s half-broth­er and a pop­u­lar fig­ure in the coun­try. In a video broad­cast by the BBC, he denied the coup attempt and spoke out strongly against cor­rup­tion and the rise of polit­ic­al repression.

In this polit­ic­al and media con­text, the announce­ment of reforms by the “Roy­al Com­mit­tee to Mod­ern­ise the Polit­ic­al Sys­tem” was seen as an attempt to appease social unrest and proof that the mon­archy was mov­ing towards the demo­crat­isa­tion of its insti­tu­tions. For example, the new elect­or­al law, enacted in 2022, now reserves 41 seats for polit­ic­al parties, thus respond­ing to a long-stand­ing demand by the oppos­i­tion. How­ever, not all of the meas­ures announced were equally well received: the cre­ation of the Nation­al Secur­ity Coun­cil, a body com­posed of sev­er­al min­is­ters, the chief of staff and the head of intel­li­gence, was met with fierce cri­ti­cism. For many Jord­ani­ans, this Nation­al Secur­ity Coun­cil is a new way of cir­cum­vent­ing exist­ing insti­tu­tions, such as Parliament.

The Islam­ic Action Front enjoyed its most decis­ive vic­tory since its found­a­tion. The party’s mem­bers them­selves were seem­ingly sur­prised by the announce­ment of such a res­ult: they man­aged to win 31 seats, eight of which were held by women. Fur­ther­more, the suc­cess was nation­wide, not lim­ited to a few geo­graph­ic­al areas but affect­ing the whole coun­try. These res­ults are also con­sist­ent with those of the stu­dent elec­tions held a few months earli­er: lists affil­i­ated with the Muslim Broth­er­hood came out on top at the Uni­ver­sity of Jordan, based in Amman. The region­al con­text, and par­tic­u­larly the impact of the Israeli government’s gen­o­cid­al war in Gaza, may have played in favour of the party, which is per­ceived as the main defend­er of the Palestini­an cause in the coun­try. Voter turnout was just over 30%, slightly high­er than in 2020. For a highly anti­cip­ated and widely pub­li­cised elec­tion, this fig­ure may seem sur­pris­ing at first glance, but it reflects both cit­izens’ dis­in­terest (with Par­lia­ment being per­ceived as a power­less insti­tu­tion) and grow­ing dis­con­tent with increas­ing repres­sion and the con­cen­tra­tion of polit­ic­al power.

Although the Broth­er­hood had already ceased to exist leg­ally in Jordan since 2020, this total ban came a few days after the arrest of sev­er­al indi­vidu­als who claimed to be affil­i­ated with the Muslim Broth­er­hood and were accused of pos­sess­ing weapons and plan­ning an attack on Jord­ani­an soil. In addi­tion to this event, the decision is a means of curb­ing the Muslim Brotherhood’s rising pop­ular­ity and reflects the deteri­or­a­tion of rela­tions between the gov­ern­ment and the Broth­er­hood. The lat­ter has repeatedly denounced the con­tin­ued dip­lo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic col­lab­or­a­tion between the Jord­ani­an state and Israel. Finally, geo­pol­it­ic­al alli­ances cer­tainly weighed on the ver­dict. Saudi Ara­bia and the United Arab Emir­ates, two stra­tegic part­ners of Jordan, con­sider the Muslim Broth­er­hood a region­al threat.

The region­al crisis has severely affected the tour­ism industry, a pil­lar of the nation­al eco­nomy that employs tens of thou­sands of Jord­ani­ans and accoun­ted for 18% of GDP in 2023 (before 7^th Octo­ber). Hotel rev­en­ues fell over sev­er­al months, end­ing up well below fore­casts (-65%). To lim­it the knock-on effects, the gov­ern­ment tem­por­ar­ily sus­pen­ded social secur­ity con­tri­bu­tions for the most affected busi­nesses. It is in this uncer­tain eco­nom­ic con­text that Pres­id­ent Trump’s return to office and the sub­sequent re-eval­u­ation of US fin­an­cial sup­port have caused ser­i­ous con­cern. These con­cerns are jus­ti­fied, as Jordan is heav­ily and struc­tur­ally depend­ent on this aid, being one of the main recip­i­ent coun­tries in the region. In April 2025, the King reportedly received sol­id assur­ances from Don­ald Trump that mil­it­ary assist­ance and budget­ary sup­port (approx­im­ately US$1.5 bil­lion) would remain intact. How­ever, the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of US aid is less clear when it comes to the edu­ca­tion and health sectors.

The “myth” of a stable coun­try in a region plagued by con­flict is in real­ity a polit­ic­al nar­rat­ive con­struc­ted jointly by the Jord­ani­an author­it­ies and inter­na­tion­al donors, who have every interest in present­ing the mon­archy as a polit­ic­al mod­el, an oas­is of sta­bil­ity, thus mak­ing it the ideal ally in the Middle East. How­ever, this nar­rat­ive has obscured the trans­form­a­tions that Jord­ani­an polit­ics and soci­ety have under­gone. Protest move­ments are part of every­day life in Jordan, as are the responses of the author­it­ies, which always oscil­late between repres­sion and con­trolled polit­ic­al reform.

Interview by Alicia Piveteau