Minister looks back on years in prison as left-wing political activist

AMMAN — When asked how he reconciles a history of left-wing activism with his current role as minister of political and parliamentary affairs, Khaled Kalaldeh quotes a famous saying by German statesman Otto von Bismarck: “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.”

The minister, born in 1955, said he was imprisoned several times in his youth due to his membership in the Jordanian Communist Party.

"One time, right after I came back from Romania, where I studied medicine, I was arrested for my Marxist ideology and affiliation with the Jordanian Communist Party. Then authorities confiscated my passport and banned me from travel and public service up to 1989," Kalaldeh told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.

The minister said he was arrested again after the protests in the southern region in April 1989, which are said to have erupted due to rising prices and economic restructuring, and which led to the end of martial law and the resumption of political life in the Kingdom.

After the re-launch of the reform and democratisation process in 1989, which Kalaldeh described as a milestone year in the Kingdom’s political history, he was able to resume his political activities.

"I joined the Jordan Medical Association, through which I gradually resumed my political activism,” the minister recalled.

Kalaldeh and his “comrades” then established the "Leftist Socialist Movement" which, he noted, has been attracting young people in considerable numbers.

"Our work has been focused on building constructive opposition and proposing alternative programmes,” he said.

The politician connected his participation in government with leftist movements’ involvement in practical governance in many regions of the world.

"In the Leftist Socialist Movement, we moved from left-wing ideology to left-wing programmes, as is the case in Europe and Latin America. The left aims to find solutions to problems that affect the majority of people. This would be difficult to achieve from outside the government.”

Kalaldeh added that his political role was not a complete break from his original career in medicine.

"Most practitioners of politics are doctors because their profession brings them closer to people's needs and concerns. Politics is not only wars and conspiracies but endless work for the welfare of people,” he explained.

As a former member of the National Dialogue Committee formed in 2011, Kalaldeh is a strong supporter of enhancing democratic political life in Jordan.

“There need to be more efforts towards convincing young people to enrol in partisan life. This is the job of political parties."

He noted that this trend is especially pronounced on the political left.

"The leftist parties in Jordan have long suffered from marginalisation and this has had its impact on their fragmented situation nowadays. The decades-long crackdown on leftist parties has led to young people's reluctance to join them."

On where he hopes the reform process will lead, Kalaldeh said: "The culmination of the democratisation process should be a fully fledged parliamentary government that is held accountable before the people and a politicised Lower House."

However, he stressed that political life in Jordan needs development before this goal can be attained.

"At least for the time being, there is unfortunately no political party in Jordan capable of forming an influential majority and therefore a parliamentary government. There is a lot to be done."