Q: If you look five years down the line, do you see yourself relinquishing some power to the parliament? “Probably sooner. We haven’t shut any doors on relinquishing power. My mission is as quickly as possible to get Jordan to have a prime minister elected from a political party…We need to create new political parties [...]

Since I haven’t published a Thursday Feel Good post for nearly a year now (and that should tell you something about our state of affairs) I thought this would be a good segue from our political turbulence. The brilliant people behind Jordan’s own, Kharabeesh, put this together. If the parliamentary “confidence vote” process was put [...]

Since the advent of the Arab Awakening, and the subsequent spotlight hovering over Jordan, one of the most frequent questions I get asked by foreigners interested in what’s going on here is the taboo of criticizing HM King Abdullah. I’ve found this question to be quite curious as it indicates that even non-Jordanians who are [...]

REUTERS: Manoubia Bou Azizi wipes her tears during an interview with Reuters at her home in Marsa district, north of Tunisia. The mother of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian man who set himself on fire in an act of protest which inspired the Arab Spring, urged the new leaders the country is electing on Sunday to [...]

The role of the Prime Minister in Jordan is probably the toughest one in the entire political spectrum of this country. Between the role of HM King Abdullah, the security apparatus, and various other institutions, it always feels like the PM job has limited executive powers, and is some times even perceived as the role [...]

This year’s Blog Action Day is dedicated to the issue of food. The most unsexy of issues. Seriously. War will always triumph over famine in media coverage and listeners’ attention. That’s just the way the world seems to work. Unless you personally (that’s right, you reading this right now) personally have a growling stomach and [...]

…if you’re a blogger/tweep, you can start here.

When it comes to reform, Jordan may fare better than some of its regional counterparts, but if you’re a Jordanian and you hold the country to a higher standard, state-driven reforms are nothing short but a triumph of mediocrity. Case in point, the municipal elections. In another bid to tell the world “hey! look, we’re [...]