The new wave of protests

Protesting against International Monetary Fund-backed austerity measures and the new proposed income tax, Jordanians took to the street in cities across Jordan. Negotiations between the government and the unions have reached a dead-end. Indeed, the economic team in the government has failed to convince the public with the new measures, particularly when the approval rate of the government is less than 30 per cent, the lowest in the history of Jordan. 

Enough is enough, many demonstrators said the other night. The Economic Intelligence Unit ranked Amman as one of the most expensive cities in the Arab world. This year witnessed price rises on bread and basic goods. The new income tax bill, if passed, will weaken Jordanians’ ability to meet their daily basic needs. Interestingly, the prime minister has failed to open the law for public debate. For this reason, stakeholders have made the argument that the government cannot just impose a law like this without consulting with them.

By far, His Majesty King Abdullah is more sensible to the needs of his people and the proper way for enacting a law. He called on Parliament to lead a “comprehensive and reasonable national dialogue” on the new tax law. “It would not be fair that the citizen alone bears the burden of financial reforms,” he told officials on Saturday evening. For this reason, it seems that the best way to calm the storm is by withdrawing the new proposed Income Tax Law.

A new government is needed to embark on consultation with stakeholders on a new law. In other words, no government should impose a law like this depending on a spineless Parliament. 

The government’s top priority should be how to get out of the bottleneck of the economic crisis. Over the last decade, Jordan's economy has deteriorated. The governments’ mismanagement of the economy in addition to the intake of over a million Syrian refugees and the lack of foreign aid have a toll on the Jordanian economy. 

Talking to some protesters at the Fourth Circle, they told me that the government cannot continue with the International Monetary Fund-backed policies that have impoverished Jordanians. Explicit in their demands is a need to withdraw the income tax. They insisted that corruption is a key reason for the current problem. But, the protests reveal a deeper problem. Jordanians, on the whole, do not trust whatever the government says. In many of letters of designation that the King sent the governments, he stressed the need to restore public trust. This seems a difficult goal to achieve.

To be sure, the problem will not be solved by getting rid of this government. Jordan needs a paradigm shift. The economic approach adopted by successive governments has failed big time. The levels of poverty and unemployment reached an alarming point. By insisting on imposing new tax on people will hardly solve the twin problems of unemployment and poverty. In a nutshell, Jordan needs to think thoroughly of the changing regional environment. We have fewer friends and, therefore, we need to look inwards and this entails political reform in addition to economic reform.