Election test for Jordanian reform

Elections in Arab monarchies rarely make much impact but when Jordanians vote for a new parliament on Wednesday the event will still be watched carefully across the Middle East and beyond.

King Abdullah called the elections ahead of schedule because he wants to develop stable parliamentary government and the political parties to sustain it — a cautious response to the unsettling past two years of the Arab spring. But all the signs are that this will be a long and bumpy ride.

Frustratingly for the Hashemite monarch, the opposition Islamic Action Front, the Hirak protest movement and three smaller parties are boycotting the polls as a "meaningless gimmick" they say is designed to appease worried western supporters and defuse anger over the economy and corruption at a time of rising expectations for change.

Independent outside experts tend to agree. "The election will be a damp squib that will only entrench a growing legitimacy gap," predicted the European Council for Foreign Relations. Reform has been on the agenda in Jordan since 1989 but moves so slowly that it might "be measured on a timeline of human evolution," in the words of Jordanian blogger Nasseem Tarawnah.

Jordan has certainly been shaken by regional turbulence but has weathered the storm. Criticism of the king, once utterly taboo and still risky, is finding its way into social media. Repression, though, has been mild by regional standards and no-one has been shot just for demonstrating, unlike in Syria or the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

But the economy is a weak point. Attacks on the pipeline bringing gas from Egypt mean the government has had to import Iraqi fuel oil that costs $5m a day, pushing the deficit deep into the red. A $2bn loan from the IMF has required slashing subsidies on cooking gas and petrol. Steep price rises last November triggered violent protests in which three people were killed.

The official line in Amman is that there is a "Jordanian vision" of how to make gradual progress towards a democratic system while preserving a monarchy which does remain broadly popular. No-one, in any event, is calling for its overthrow.

Constitutional reforms over the last year gave more authority to the chamber of deputies, which will have a freer hand to draw up legislation and a bigger role in monitoring the cabinet. And for the first time the king is promising to consult parliament before appointing the prime minister, though the king will still be able to sack him (as he has done three times in the last two years).

A new electoral law remains controversial because it is weighted in favour of the traditionally loyalist East Bank elite. Constituencies are gerrymandered against national or ideologically-based parties and against Palestinians — always a highly sensitive issue in a country whose entire history has been shaped by the Arab-Israeli conflict. The new parliament, like the discredited last one, looks set to be dominated by independent candidates. "The electorate is being wooed to elect individuals based on their name and tribe rather than their policies and experiences," commented the journalist Daoud Kuttab.

One undoubted advance is the creation of an independent electoral commission run by the highly-regarded Abdulillah al-Khatib, a former foreign minister. It has taken over responsibility for voting from the interior ministry, which should prevent a repeat of the meddling by the powerful Mukhabarat security service in the last two elections.

Jordan's political system is similar to those of Kuwait and Morocco, which both have parliaments and whose rulers also face Samuel Huntington's classic "king's dilemma" of how far to promote a controlled opening of the system without surrendering power or becoming genuinely accountable. Jordan and Morocco have won support from the wealthier hydrocarbon monarchies in the Gulf and saw solidarity trumping geography when they were offered membership in its regional grouping, the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Jordanian officials are peevish when the government is not given credit for what they defend as successful if cautious reforms, while opposition activists firmly reject the democratization process as largely cosmetic. The terrible violence in Syria and doubts about developments in Egypt and Tunisia — including the role of Islamist parties — have had their effect on both sides.

Turnout matters, as does the fairness of the election — which will be monitored by independent foreign observers. But the choice does not look likely quickly or significantly to alter Jordan's political landscape in a rapidly changing region.