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