AMMAN — A rumor
circulating in the usually gossip-ridden capital city suggests that
Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh is in the process of carrying out a cabinet
reshuffle as his government approaches its second year this month.
اضافة اعلان
The Council of
Ministers has experienced four cabinet reshuffles since taking office in a year
that witnessed idle business activity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Subsequently, the
government was faced with soaring inflation, and rising food and fuel prices
following Russia’s war on Ukraine last February, which resulted in the
interruption of global supply chains.
Domestically, the
government was rocked by a toxic gas leak in the port of Aqaba that killed 13
people and injured 265 others on June 27. A container carrying 25 tonnes of
Chlorine fell from a crane onto a docked ship and ruptured, sending a cloud of
bright, yellow gas in the port and its vicinity. The leak was blamed on the
failure of the cabling system and negligence of some port officials.
But even before
the gas leak, the Cabinet was in hot waters with pundits, who accused it
publicly of poor performance, and pointed to successive ministers being unable
to deal with crises, including the pandemic and the soaring prices.
Columnist
Omar Kallab said much of the decisions taken in the past two years are “governed by
Royal will, and economic and political necessity”.
“There is no need
for a reshuffle now,” he told
Jordan News.
“In normal
circumstances, public opinion is not a decisive factor in whether the
government should leave or remain,” he pointed out.
He said the
government “needs a new royal mandate in line with what is being proposed,
politically and economically, and all of this is not even in the book under
which the government operates”.
He noted that a
royal message may “come to the government assigning it with a new mandate which
may be followed by a reshuffle, or it may completely change the government with a new prime minister
appointed”.
Mamdouh Al-Abbadi,
a former deputy prime minister, told
Jordan News that “usually, the life
span of most governments is two years, and this justifies the existence of
these rumors.”
“It is unlikely
that there will be a cabinet reshuffle,” he said.
Geopolitical
expert
Amer Al-Sabaileh, told
Jordan News that he believed that the
“defect is greater than officials, and lies in the mechanism of managing these
officials. He did not elaborate.
Hassan Al-Momani,
a professor of international relations and conflict resolution at the
University of Jordan, said that talking about a ministerial reshuffle has
become part of our “political culture, and has increased with the spread of
technological development”.
Momani said that
“the current government had some failures, such as the incident of the Salt
Hospital, and the port of Aqaba.”
“Thus, the Jordanian
streets are waiting for a change to occur, and on the other hand, the
government has not accomplished what it was entrusted with”, he told
Jordan
News.
Member of
Parliament Ahmad Al-Sarhaneh told
Jordan News that what is being
circulated in the Jordanian street about the possibility of a government
reshuffle “is true, and this may take place within the next two weeks”.
He stressed the
need for the government to find radical solutions to the most prominent
challenges related to high prices and the unemployment crisis.
Senator and
political analyst Jamil Al-Nimri told
Jordan News it was “possible” that
there will be a cabinet reshuffle, but “there are no political reasons for the
change”.
Nimri stressed that the
reshuffle is governed by internal matters in the ministerial team, and the
extent of “harmony” among Cabinet ministers.
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