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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - A group of Members of Parliament on Tuesday blasted recent statements made by ex-deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher in which he expected that the current 17th Lower House will be dissolved before finishing its 4-year term.

MP Abdul Karim Dughmi criticized Muasher, saying that "This person [Muasher] contributed to destroying state institutions, and ever since he left office, he has been attacking the Jordanian State."

MPs Mohammad Qatatsheh, Ahmad Jaloudi, and Suleiman al-Zabn also criticized Muasher for statements he made in a recent interview conducted by a Jordanian student and researcher in the United States.

Muasher, who also previously held the positions of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Media and Communications, was recently interviewed by Ala' AlRabab'h on peacefare.net. Muasher currently holds the position of vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC.

Muasher described the Jordanian electoral law as non-representative and unfair, resulting in "weak parliaments by necessity."

"Parliaments are dependent on the executive branch instead of holding the executive branch accountable and monitoring its work," Muasher said.

Meanwhile in parliament on Tuesday, MPs interrupted MP Jamil Nimri from defending Muasher.

Nimri began to speak, defending that MPs should not attack a "national figure," yet MPs began to bang on the tables in an effort to interrupt Nimri.

On his part, Lower House Speaker Saad Hayel Srour called on MPs to disregard Muasher's comments, stating that "the issue does not deserve a response, the Lower House earned its legitimacy from the people, and is protected by the constitution.. and under the patronage of King Abdullah II."

Asked in the interview whether he expects the current parliament to actually finish all four years of its term, Muasher responded that he does not, citing that the current parliament is "unrepresentative."

"I don’t think that the current parliament would complete its term. The current parliament is unrepresentative. And the government, when it insisted on such a [electoral] law that gave 18% [of the seats] to national lists, and not party lists… but it is clear today that this parliament, and those lists too, are unrepresentative, because the law did not provide the party lists, which are necessary to carry on political life, with enough [seats]. And thus it kept 81% or 82% of the seats as they were in the past," Muasher said in the interview.

Muasher added: "If we look at polls in Jordan today, we’d see that, I think the poll from the Center of [Strategic] Studies in the University of Jordan shows that 72% of Jordanians are unsatisfied, or think that this parliaments is either not better or worse than the previous parliament. Thus, we cannot wait 4 more years until there is an electoral law that the Jordanian citizen feels is representative of him and her in a way better than what it currently is. I think the first item on the list of any government, which is serious about the subject of political reform, should be changing the electoral law," Muasher said in the interview."