By Rami G. Khouri

If, as I noted in my column Thursday, Jordan is the one country that best captures the many contradictory political, social, religious and cultural sentiments swirling across the Arab world, now is the best time to visit the country as these sentiments are being expressed in public during the monthlong run-up to parliamentary elections at the end of January. Despite the fact that the Islamic Action Front, which is the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, and others are boycotting the polls, while in Amman last week, I found myself captivated by slogans and messages on the thousands election posters on almost every tree and electricity pole of the main cities. The slogans provide a fascinating window into the minds of candidates, and through them into the mindsets of the citizenry, judging by how candidates emphasize issues they believe voters care about. My unscientific analysis of the candidates’ slogans reveals a few dominant themes that capture the mood in Jordan, and probably in other Arab countries.
 
These include affirmations of the right to speak out and shape national policies; a massive demand for (unspecified) “reform” and “change”; a desire for Jordanian national unity and cohesion; greater freedom, democracy and dignity; broader citizen rights; social justice; women’s rights; free media; hostility to corruption; support for the Palestine issue; and a prevalent call for citizens to participate in elections and public life if they want to bring about real change.
 
So why has no Arab country been able to implement serious and credible political reforms that respond to these obvious demands? Despite some reforms and greater public liberties in countries such as Jordan and Morocco, core grievances remain strong and widespread (mostly about corruption, abuse of power, inequitable opportunities for under-represented citizens, poor socio-economic conditions, and security sector dominance of the executive and legislative branches).
 
Jordan is grappling with these issues once again, after the missed opportunity of the first attempt a decade ago to bring about comprehensive reform from the top – through the National Agenda process that King Abdullah initiated but then apparently abandoned due to strong opposition from some Jordanian quarters. Now, the demands for change are emanating more from the grassroots level, driven by three simultaneous forces: sustained economic stress especially among marginalized provincial populations, the spillover momentum of the uprisings in other Arab countries, and citizens’ declining confidence in the seriousness of the king and the power elite to bring about real change.
 
I feel that in response to calls for substantive constitutional reforms, King Abdullah understands the need to slowly change the system into a constitutional monarchy in which parliament and the Cabinet run the government, and the monarch remains above day-to-day politics and is mainly responsible for safeguarding the integrity of the state (including the non-political status of the armed forces, the judiciary and religious institutions). Yet he has been unable to respond to the demands for such reforms because a more representative and empowered Parliament is the center of gravity of the apparently unbridgeable gap between the two most powerful populist forces in the country whose demands are diametrically opposed to one another These forces are the Transjordanian tribalists-nationalists on the one side, and Islamists-Palestinians on the other.
 
Some powerful Transjordanians reject a fully representative Parliament that might see Islamists and Jordanians of Palestinian origin dominate the political-economic system, especially since the Muslim Brotherhood’s base is disproportionately among Palestinian-Jordanians. The Brotherhood and leftist or Arab nationalist opposition groups, on the other hand, seek a fully representative parliament that satisfies citizens’ demands for equality and credible accountability.
 
The new election law aims to make incremental progress on this issue, by expanding the number of seats to 150, including 27 seats elected by national lists, alongside primarily tribal local district candidates. The 27 national list seats seem to be an attempt to achieve two goals: to prod the development of political parties not based on local tribal or religious affiliations, and indirectly to redress the chronic structural imbalance that has always favored rural tribal districts and pro-government lawmakers elected on the basis of tribal loyalty.
 
This election will probably not tell us anything new about Jordan’s capacity to change in response to citizen demands. King Abdullah will soon have to accept the limits of his ability to prod gradual reforms from above, given the sharp differences between the two main political groups in the country. Bold leadership will be required in the near future to override the narrow provincial concerns of both tribalists and Islamists, and instead to harness the untapped power of those millions of Jordanians who have gone well beyond Transjordanian-tribal-Palestinian-Islamist identities, and desperately seek the comforts and duties of equal citizenship under the rule of law that is equitably applied to all. This has been the key driving force of the Arab uprisings in the past two years.
 
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR. This is the second piece in a two-part series.