AMMAN, 3 September 2007 — Jordan’s King Abdallah yesterday reshuffled the Cabinet of Prime Minister Marouf Bakheet appointing new finance, water and health ministers ahead of a November legislative election, according to a royal court statement. Hamad Kasasbeh was appointed finance minister to replace Ziyad Fariz, who resigned last week after Bakheet refused to hike fuel prices and end subsidies of energy products, which the outgoing minister deemed expanding the budget’s deficit.
Salah Mawajdeh was appointed minister of public health, replacing Saad Kharabsheh, while Mohammad Shatnawi was assigned the portfolio of water and irrigation to succeed Mohammad Al-Alem. Kharabsheh and Alem resigned at the end of July over water contamination in a village in the Mafraq province near the Iraqi border.
It is the second reshuffle of Bakheet’s government, which was formed on Nov. 27, 2005. The first reshuffle of Bakheet’s Cabinet, which involved 10 ministers, was in November itself last year.
The new government change is set to anger the Muslim Brotherhood movement and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), as it gives the impression that the present government is going to oversee the parliamentary elections on Nov. 20.
Both groups have been campaigning for the resignation of the entire cabinet as a pre-requisite for holding fair ballots. They charged that the government had “rigged” the municipal polls on July 31 by using a large number of military personnel in plain clothes for voting in favor of pro-government candidates. Bakheet denied the charges and insisted that voting by the military was legal under the municipal law.
