AMMAN, 17 June 2005 — Jordan’s King Abdallah yesterday accepted the resignation of Finance Minister Bassem Awadallah in a move aimed at defusing a row over the makeup of the Cabinet.
The resignation is expected to pave the way for a compromise agreement between Prime Minister Adnan Badran and a group of 47 parliamentarians who had threatened a vote of no confidence in Badran’s government.
The deputies had criticized the Cabinet since its formation on April 7, in particular the government’s economic team headed by Awadallah, a US-educated economist and a longtime favorite of the monarch.
Awadallah’s proposed raft of economic reforms had been criticised by conservatives as too liberal. The 47 deputies also criticized Badran for not including in his Cabinet an adequate number of ministers from the southern provinces of the Kingdom.
