King Abdullah’s disingenuous democracy pledges

Since King Abdullah took control in 1999, the Jordanian ruler has repeatedly advocated for liberalizing Jordan’s political system. Abdullah told ABC’s Peter Jennings in his first months as monarch: “The sky is the limit for what can be done on democracy and democratic reforms.” In 2013, the Hashemite leader called for the transition to a “full parliamentary government” with strong political parties and separation of powers. Later that year, Abdullah pledged that when his son would become monarch, Jordan would be a “Western democracy with a constitutional monarchy” like the United Kingdom. But after over a quarter century on the throne, Jordan remains autocratic, with the opposition having virtually no chance of winning power and the king’s promises of political reform far from realised.

In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the kingdom’s largest opposition group. Authorities raided the Islamist organization’s offices, seized assets, and insisted that promoting the group’s ideology was illegal. Abdullah has long criticised Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, calling them a “masonic cult” and “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” The Hashemite Kingdom said the ban was necessary because of the Muslim Brotherhood’s involvement in terror plots. While the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm — the Islamic Action Front — won the most seats of any party in last year’s parliamentary election, the group could do little to stop the crackdown. 

The king’s crackdown has not only focused on Islamist alliances. Marwan Muasher, a Christian politician who previously served as foreign minister, established an independent political party in 2018 called the Civil Alliance. The party promoted a secular political system with checks and balances. The Civil Alliance faced repeated government intervention to prevent it from amassing widespread support. At first, the regime barred the Civil Alliance from meeting. Afterward, the Jordanian Intelligence apparatus summoned the party’s leaders to deter citizens from becoming more involved in the Civil Alliance. The security forces threatened party members with losing their employment over participation in the liberal faction. The Civil Alliance fell apart soon afterwards, joining a long list of failed Jordanian political factions. In a startling poll, 60 per cent of Jordanian university students said that if a party member called for a political event on campus, they would be questioned by authorities. The Hashemite ruler has for years urged the growth of political parties, but citizens following his advice were then punished.

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Given the regime pressure, Jordanian citizens have shown little enthusiasm for the country’s political institutions. Despite significant government promotion, only around 30 per cent of Jordanians voted in the 2020 and 2024 national elections. Earlier races in Abdullah’s tenure featured large numbers of vote-buying, and parliamentary districts have been heavily gerrymandered to favor pro-monarchy tribal candidates at the expense of areas with a considerable Palestinian population. Jordanian analyst Nasseem Tarawneh wrote after the 2007 election that, “Voting, in hopes of making any practical difference, is essentially like betting on the Washington Generals every time they play the Harlem Globetrotters, when everyone knows the game is rigged for the sake of entertainment.”

Over two decades into Abdullah’s reign, the Economist labeled Jordan “authoritarian,” the lowest ranking in the magazine’s 2024 democracy survey. Abdullah appoints every member of the Senate, which must approve all of Jordan’s legislation. In 2025, Reporters Without Borders ranked the Hashemite Kingdom 147th out of 180 countries, noting that intelligence services closely monitor journalists who face frequent interrogations. During the 2023-2025 Gaza war protests, Jordanian security officials arrested over 1,500 individuals, generating criticism from Amnesty International. A few years earlier, Jordanian security forces detained around 1,000 teachers in a crackdown on the teachers’ union after a strike demanding higher wages. 

Abdullah has repeatedly tasked royal committees to advance political reform, which has yielded few changes. In 2005, Abdullah selected Muasher to lead an initiative to liberalize Jordan’s governance called the National Agenda. The king called for a “more politically active public, political pluralism, active and powerful parties” that would bring Jordan into a “new age.” Yet, shortly after the National Agenda released its final 2,500-page report, an Al-Qaeda terror attack struck Amman hotels, killing 60 people and overshadowing the reform agenda. When the king briefly met Muasher’s panel upon its conclusion, Abdullah was “aloof,” according to Osama Sharif, who served on the Royal committee. Six years later, Abdullah appointed another political reform panel after the Arab Spring protests. In June 2011, the king pledged to allow parliament to select Jordan’s cabinet, but this promise was never implemented; Abdullah continued selecting the new premier, often shortly before national elections, making the electoral race even less consequential. After Abdullah’s half-brother, Prince Hamzah, reportedly launched a sedition plot citing widespread corruption, the king once again tasked a royal panel with a political reform initiative to “enhance” democracy. A 2022 Human Rights Watch report titled “Jordan: Government Crushes Civic Space” demonstrated that little tangible progress was made after Abdullah’s latest reform effort.

President George W. Bush’s calls for democratisation in the Arab world after the 2003 invasion of Iraq added urgency to Abdullah’s early political reform effort, even as Amman was less repressive than neighbouring Damascus and Baghdad. Muasher contended nearly two decades later that after President Joe Biden campaigned on promoting democracy worldwide, Amman’s largest donor would want to see genuine Jordanian political reform. It is no coincidence that a few months later, Abdullah organised another initiative to change the country’s electoral system. Following President Donald Trump’s 2025 return to the White House, public US calls for Amman to respect human rights have disappeared. With the Hashemite Kingdom banning the largest opposition party earlier this year, Abdullah no longer needs to pretend that he will bring democracy to his country.

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