"We believe the new government — with its present composition — will not be qualified to conduct the required democratic transition,” Zaki Bani Ersheid, head of the IAF Political Department, told Arab News.

"However, the IAF will support any step to be adopted by the government toward implementing the required political reforms, foremost the adoption of a new election law that leads to the election of a Parliament that truly represents the people,” he said.

King Abdallah on Wednesday sworn in a new 27-member Cabinet led by Marouf Bakhit to which the monarch assigned the primary job of carrying out "real reforms”.

The monarch fired the government of Prime Minister Samir Rifai last week after a series of protests across the country that found inspiration from the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

The ministers of foreign affairs, interior and finance in the outgoing Cabinet retained their portfolios in the new government, but Bakhit also included ministers with opposition records as well as left-leaning and Pan-Arab inclinations.

The IAF and its mother group, the Muslim Brotherhood movement, rejected an offer by Bakhit to involve them in the new cabinet, saying they preferred to remain in the opposition at this juncture, awaiting the achievement of the promised reforms.

Bakhit is blamed by radicals for the "rigging” of the 2007 elections, when he was also prime minister. The IAF deputies at the lower house fell drastically in that year’s polls—to six from 17 in the previous chamber.

Meanwhile, radicals boycotted the Nov. 9, 2010 elections, saying they did not receive the required guarantees that the new polls would not also be rigged.