Interview with His Majesty King Abdullah II

"Election delivers political boost for Jordan's king"

King Abdullah of Jordan yesterday described this week's parliamentary election as a transitional phase that should lead to the creation of strong political blocs, rather than set new policies for the country.

Tribal figures and pro-monarchy independents won a majority of seats in the first general election since the king took over, bolstering the control of the pro-western monarchy over Jordanian politics.

Coming a few days before Jordan hosts a gathering of the World Economic Forum that will seek to promote political and economic modernisation in the Arab world, the election helps improve the country's image after two years of rule by decree.

Islamists, who form the largest organised opposition in the country, won around 20 per cent of the vote and complained of vote-rigging in some of the districts.

But in an interview with the Financial Times, King Abdullah brushed aside charges of vote manipulation and criticism that the electoral law had alienated voters of Palestinian origin - a majority in the country - to allow for greater representation for pro-monarchy tribes and independents. But he acknowledged lessons would be learned from the way the election was prepared.

In a country where promoting economic reform has been a greater priority than advancing political change, he made no secret that the monarchy had been intimately involved in the electoral process. An advertising campaign and meetings with labour unions and students helped raised the turnout to nearly 59 per cent.

“We have 25 to 30 parties, which sounds ridiculous. I wanted to stimulate parties to say what is their agenda. The problem is the quality of candidates and we couldn't solve that problem,” he said.

“But now that we have parliamentarians, we will try to stimulate them into forming blocs that are left, centre and right. At a future date voters will be able to choose candidates based on what they stand for, as opposed to who they are and what their affiliation is. That's the strategy that I wish.”

He suggested that the election would have little influence on the composition of the next government, saying that ministers would be picked according to qualifications rather than political affiliation. In the past, he said, ministers who came from parliament spent their time “ingratiating themselves with their representatives so they can get elected next time around”.

The election came as Arab regimes seek ways to respond to both domestic and US demands for democratisation, without risking any significant dilution of their powers, particularly when faced with Islamist opposition.

The US will use this weekend's World Economic Forum meeting to promote its programmeme of social, economic and political reforms in the region and to push for a US-Middle East free trade area.

But the American initiatives have been criticised by reformers in the Arab world for creating democratic facades that do not necessarily reflect legitimate popular aspirations.

King Abdullah, however, said Arab leaderships recognised that in the post-September 11 climate some political reform was necessary. “Since then [September 11] there's been a maturity in a lot of countries - from saying we need to deal with this problem because of what happened in New York, to this is a serious problem inside our country.”

But the king insisted democracy was a concept that was “being thrown around a lot”.

“You have to have some sort of flexibility,” he said. “Each country will have its own pace. And you have to give countries some leeway. But it has dawned on people enough that a majority of Arab populations are expecting more freedom and better representation in deciding their future.”

Although the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Iraq war have generated widespread discontent in Jordan, the king said that, in his meetings with university students before the election, he was surprised to find that regional issues were not high on their minds.

“I'd start meetings explaining about Iraq and Palestinians. But they [the students] weren't interested. They were interested in jobs, in their future, and asking what can you do for me.”