{"id":467205,"date":"2016-09-29T15:59:31","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T15:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/?p=467205"},"modified":"2022-09-20T16:00:59","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T16:00:59","slug":"is-jordans-islamist-phoenix-rising-again-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/is-jordans-islamist-phoenix-rising-again-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Jordan\u2019s Islamist phoenix rising again?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jordan\u2019s parliamentary elections on September 20 heralded the return of the Muslim Brotherhood, having survived a major attempt by the Jordanian regime to dismantle and destroy it. After such weakening and a decade-long electoral boycott, the group\u2019s political party\u2014the Islamic Action Front (IAF)\u2014did well to contest seats throughout the country, but this time only as part of a wider coalition. The coalition claimed an estimated\u00a016 of 130 seats in parliament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This success at the ballot box is tempered by ongoing issues that belie the progress of moderate Islamism in Jordan more generally. This indicates that the king and his advisors are still committed to ensuring that any role for political Islam in the country remains highly constricted.<\/p>\n

PUSHED TO THE MARGINS<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Although the Muslim Brotherhood is Jordan\u2019s oldest political movement and has previously played the part of a \u201cloyal opposition,\u201d the ruling regime has always regarded it with suspicion. Since coming to the throne in the late 1990s, King Abdullah has increasingly viewed the Brotherhood\u2019s agenda as hawkish and at odds with his ambitions, as well as domestic and regional security concerns. Since the rise of ISIS in neighboring Iraq and Syria, Jordan\u2019s king has increasingly allied himself with Western powers who have declared\u00a0war<\/a>\u00a0on ISIS and use the kingdom as a command and control center for training and supporting the fight against the group. The Brotherhood\u2019s hostility to Jordan\u2019s peace deal with Israel and King Abdullah\u2019s increasing dependence on the United States as a strategic partner\u2014along with the group\u2019s inclination to support other Islamist actors such as Hamas\u2014indicated to the regime that it presented a latent threat.<\/p>\n

Within the Brotherhood, whose members are of predominantly Palestinian origin, there emerged two contending strands: hawks and doves. It had always been the hope of the Jordanian authorities that by mixing censure, surveillance, and arrest of the hawks, on the one hand, with support for the doves on the other, that they could successfully co-opt the group. Meanwhile, splits within the Brotherhood emerged over a number of issues, including participation in Jordan\u2019s electoral system. This resulted in a decade-long boycott of elections, which the Brotherhood contended were biased against it.<\/p>\n

Brotherhood-led protests during the Arab Spring\u2014and later, against Jordan\u2019s support for the Western and Arab anti-ISIS coalition\u2019s airstrikes in Syria and Iraq\u2014garnered only modest popular support. The Brotherhood had initially hoped to capitalize on the Arab Spring and the ascendency of the movement regionally, especially following the electoral successes of Egypt\u2019s Brotherhood and Tunisia\u2019s related organization, Ennahda. However, the subsequent backlash, initiated by General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi in Egypt in 2013 and supported by Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE\u2014combined with the rise of salafi jihadi elements like ISIS\u2014has limited the Brotherhood\u2019s ambitions in Jordan. Fear soon spread that King Abdullah would succumb to growing pressure from Saudi Arabia to declare the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

This fear persisted throughout 2014 as it became increasingly apparent that the regime was ready to decisively distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood and launch an unprecedented broadside against it. It began to look like King Abdullah\u2019s patience was wearing thin, especially with the regional situation. This was tellingly evident in the\u00a0arrest, trial, and subsequent imprisonment<\/a>\u00a0of the Brotherhood\u2019s deputy leader, Zaki Bani Irshied, on charges of treason. Pro-regime media published commentaries painting the group as inimical to Jordan\u2019s pluralistic character.\u00a0Throughout 2015 and 2016, the regime effectively dismantled the Brotherhood, declaring it illegal and\u00a0closing its headquarters<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Amman. It also encouraged splits within the group, resulting in the Zamzam initiative and extending a license to the newly declared Muslim Brotherhood Society (MBS), led by the group\u2019s former general overseer Abdul Majeed Thneibat.<\/p>\n

PHOENIX RISING FROM ASHES?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Countering these setbacks, for this month\u2019s elections the IAF ended its boycott and circumvented the legal barriers against it to publicly test the level of support it can still muster. In doing so, it dropped its iconic \u201cIslam is the solution<\/a>\u201d slogan and fielded candidates in the majority of electoral districts under the banner of\u00a0the National Coalition for Reform<\/a>\u00a0(NCR), uniting with other groups including Christians. Symbols of Qurans and crossed swords, so ubiquitously associated with past Brotherhood campaigns, were replaced with new imagery associated with a modern national coalition.<\/p>\n

A return of Jordan\u2019s once-dominant opposition group to the lower house parliament, however, is unlikely to herald significant change. The 16 seats the NCR\u00a0won<\/a>\u00a0(with an estimated 8 for actual Brotherhood members) is a far cry from what it won in elections in the late 1980s, when it was also invited into government. With so few seats, the Brotherhood will not be able to use the parliamentary platform to act as a meaningful opposition. Nevertheless, given recent travails, the modest success at the polls is a victory of sorts. It signals to the king and his court that though the Brotherhood may be down, it is not out, and the concerns it has championed still resonate with Jordan\u2019s citizens.<\/p>\n

For the Muslim Brotherhood, successfully re-entering electoral politics at a time when its position in Jordan had become increasingly untenable gives it a chance to reassert itself. Still, the group\u2019s potential impact will be circumscribed by the limits of the national debate about Jordan\u2019s stability at a time of domestic and regional instability. The Muslim Brotherhood, no matter how moderate its past positions, appears to be on the wrong side of a battle line which King Abdullah drew when his kingdom was targeted by ISIS. Hence, this particular phoenix will have its wings severely clipped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jordan\u2019s parliamentary elections on September 20 heralded the return of the Muslim Brotherhood, having survived a major attempt by the Jordanian regime to dismantle and destroy it. After such weakening and a decade-long electoral boycott, the group\u2019s political party\u2014the Islamic Action Front (IAF)\u2014did well to contest seats throughout the country, but this time only as… Continue reading Is Jordan\u2019s Islamist phoenix rising again?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":466315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication_archive_type":[297],"class_list":["post-467205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","publication_archive_type-issue-brief","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467207,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467205\/revisions\/467207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467205"},{"taxonomy":"publication_archive_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_archive_type?post=467205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}