Jordan’s Election Poses a Test for Muslim Brotherhood’s Change


25-08-2016 06:11 AM

Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - In the campaign for parliamentary elections next month, the political wing of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood replaced its traditional slogan, “Islam is the Solution,” with a more inclusive “Reform.” And to underscore its more moderate posture, the Islamic Action Front also fielded several Christians and women on its coalition’s slate of candidates.

One of the oldest and most potent political forces in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood has been on the defensive following the 2013 coup against a Brotherhood administration in Egypt that unleashed a regional crackdown on political Islam.

The Sept. 20 elections in Jordan—a monarchy where most major decisions are taken by the royal court—aren’t likely to alter the country’s domestic or foreign policies. But they offer a rare test of strength for political Islam in the region as well as a measure of what lessons, if any, the Brotherhood has learned from its disastrous experience in power in Egypt.


The head of the IAF’s elections committee, Zaki Bani Irsheid, was released from Jordanian prison earlier this year after serving most of his 18-month sentence for criticizing the United Arab Emirates, one of the region’s most strident enemies of the Brotherhood.

“Political Islam is one of the most important components of Arab society and it cannot be eliminated,” he said in an interview. “But the Islamic movement has undergone a deep review of its ideas and discourse, and the experiment of these elections is a manifestation of this change.”

The IAF boycotted previous elections in 2010 and in 2013, when many Jordanian Islamists hoped street protests here would bring them to power the same way they had in Egypt and Tunisia—and that Brotherhood-affiliated rebels would take over in neighboring Syria.


Today, after a series of setbacks and splits, some of them engineered by the Jordanian government, the IAF is embracing a very different posture.

“We have always raised the slogan that we want to reform the regime, and stood in the way of those who said they want to overthrow the regime,” said Ali Saleh Abu Sukkar, the IAF’s deputy secretary-general.

The Brotherhood’s mother organization in Egypt was repressed and kept out of power from its inception in the 1920s until the 2012-2013 administration of President Mohammed Morsi, who is currently behind bars. But the Jordanian branch has at times belonged to the kingdom’s government and often backed the monarchy at critical intersections.

Because of Jordan’s complicated electoral laws, the IAF-led coalition, Mr. Abu Sukkar said, is unlikely to win more than 20% of parliament’s 130 seats. Such an achievement, however, would be enough to make the Islamists the biggest organized political force in the country’s usually fractured legislature.

“Elections will give us a chance to influence political life instead of being politically absent,” Mr. Abu Sukkar said. “There is a buildup of resentment in the society, and going on with the boycott would have only increased that resentment. That would have further dented the legitimacy of the legislative process, and the integrity of the state.”

Running against the IAF in the polls are groups that broke away from the Brotherhood in recent years. One is a more liberal faction called Zamzam. Another, led by the Brotherhood’s former leader, Abed al-Majid al-Thnibat, is registered by the Jordanian government as the country’s “official” Muslim Brotherhood and preaches a more nationalist agenda.

“Political Islam has been exploited by violent, jihadist organizations. We must separate Islam from political Islam. Islam is a religion, and those who practice politics should not be using Islam to reach power,” said Rhiel Gharaibeh, a 40-year Brotherhood veteran who now heads Zamzam’s steering committee.

While these breakaway groups aren’t likely to siphon off many Brotherhood votes, the splits have ended up pulling the IAF into a more liberal direction, at least as far as electoral tactics are concerned. That includes naming five members of Jordan’s small Christian minority and 19 women on its slate of candidates.

Other than a generic call for “reform” and fighting against corruption and for economic development, the IAF’s electoral coalition isn't actually bound by any detailed program. Former independent lawmaker Audeh Qawas, the most prominent among the Christian candidates, said he didn’t promise anything to the Brotherhood in exchange for support and would vote against policies espoused by Islamists, such as a ban on alcohol, if elected.

Still, he added, the very fact that the Brotherhood is campaigning for someone like him represents encouraging change.

“They’ve taken a very strong decision against the fundamentalists that are members of their party and recognized that there are people other than Muslims in this country,” said Dr. Qawas, an Amman surgeon active in Orthodox church life.

Many other Jordanians aren’t convinced that the Brotherhood has really changed its stripes, or that its soft new approach is anything more than an electoral ploy. But, for now, they say they have no choice but to take the Islamists’ new professions of moderation at face value.

“I want to believe that they mean it and that their change is genuine,” said Taher al-Masri, a former prime minister and a former speaker of Jordan’s senate. “We have to meet this challenge and call their bluff.”

*WSJ




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