Hamas rise forces Jordan to go slow on democracy

This month’s legislative elections were supposed to be a watershed in this pro-American kingdom’s slow but committed march to democratic change.

This month’s legislative elections were supposed to be a watershed in this pro-American kingdom’s slow but committed march to democratic change.

But Hamas’s rise to power in the Palestinian Authority and its violent takeover of Gaza in June have cast a heavy shadow over politics in Jordan, where a Hashemite monarch maintains a tight, authoritarian grip on a restive Palestinian majority and an activist Islamic opposition.

As a result, the government has dropped plans to change its byzantine electoral law, prohibited some critics from seeking office and threatened to bar independent observers from the polls. And, with less than two weeks before the November 20 vote, opposition candidates are accusing the government of rampant voter fraud.

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The government’s fears have resonated in some quarters of the liberal elite that just two years ago was pushing for a political overhaul that would allow national parties and free, fair elections. But Jordan’s system restrains not only Islamists but also secular liberal parties and advocates of Palestinian rights. Many in the opposition accuse the government of using the specter of rising Islamism to justify autocratic rule.

“We have democracy, but we don’t want it to go to an extent where the radical people could rule the country,” said Hakem Habahbeh, a pilot who was spending a recent evening at the campaign tent of Ahmed Saffadi, in a wealthy, liberal enclave. Saffadi, a former military officer and now a cellphone company executive, is running for Parliament from the third district of Amman. Political discussion in the tent ran late into the evening. Most of the talk involved rising prices and unemployment, and fear that Jordan’s Islamists could follow the example of Hamas and rise to power.

“We can’t have more freedom right now, conditions don’t allow it,” said Ahmed Saleem, another Saffadi backer at the tent. With the examples of disorder nearby in the West Bank, Gaza and Iraq, he said, liberals in Jordan have set aside demands for political freedom. “Jordan needs stability,” said Saleem, a bureaucrat in the mayor’s office. “We don’t like to make trouble.”

The slowdown in democratisation has further alienated Jordan’s only significant opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Action Front, which commands deep support in urban areas, especially among Jordanians of Palestinian origin. The party has put forward 22 candidates, even fewer than it did in 2003.