Jordan is going through a decisive phase of its history, as a Royal Committee
was formed last week and entrusted with modernizing the political system and
reinvigorating political life. That's not only good, but rather great news for
all of us.
اضافة اعلان
As indicated in the Royal Letter forming the 92-member committee,
"its mission will be to put forward new draft election and political
parties laws; look into the necessary constitutional amendments connected to
the two laws and the mechanisms of parliamentary work; and provide
recommendations on developing legislation regulating local administration,
expanding participation in decision-making, and creating a political and
legislative environment conducive to the active engagement of youth and women
in public life."
It goes without saying that the success of this mission will pave the way for
other reforms to take shape in the economic, administrative, and social realms,
among others. In other words, political reform is the threshold into an
overhaul of the way the country is run, and the way decision-making and implementation
is made.
A couple of lines in the letter His Majesty King Abdullah has sent to the head
of the committee, former premier and incumbent senator, Samir Al-Rifai,
decisively send a much-needed assuring message to all citizens that the
King guarantees "before all Jordanians that my government will adopt the
outcomes of the committee’s work, and will submit them to Parliament
immediately without any interventions or attempts to alter or influence them."
Also, the King underscored in the letter, that the Seven Discussion Papers he
put forth for public debate years ago are only there to offer guidelines to the
panel, contributing to "mapping out the future of our country and
people". This signifies that the committee members, who represent a
wide-range of political, intellectual, and social spectra in the country, have
full independence to set the parameters of the process and come up with a
consensus over what Jordanians need and aspire to.
But this mission can be more inclusive and more credible if the opportunity is
given to the people to contribute their input in the process through a
designated website, for example, to receive suggestions. This can be done in
parallel with another mechanism, which would be to assign the expected emerging
sub-committees to meet with people from across the board, and benefit from what
they have to say about the future they want and what reform means to them.
Such engagement of the public in the process automatically means that the youth
will have a say in an enterprise that is mainly tailored to empower them. The
King said it loud and clear that "it is of importance to us that your
committee pay attention to the role of youth and explore means of motivating
their engagement in partisan and parliamentary life."
The same applies to women, as the reform would be incomplete unless the new
laws and proposed changes are expected to empower their active engagement in
public life in deeds, not only in words.
The Royal Committee is also expected to benefit from similar experiences
carried out successfully by other countries. After all, history is a great
teacher if we learn the lessons well.
With this diversity in the makeup of the reform panel, we expect heated
discussions in order to reach as much consensus as we can because Jordanians
are watching and because this opportunity is make-or-break for them.
There are great expectations involved and a lot of hard work to be done to
convince people that past failures to realize Jordanians' big hopes for genuine
reform will not repeat themselves this time.
In fact, we are remaking history here. Let's be up to expectations, and let's
not miss the chance to build a better future for all of us.
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Opinion & Analysis
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