Brotherhood in Jordan feels the heat after Mursi’s ouster

THE leadership of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is under pressure, especially in the wake of the overthrow of Islamist President Muhammad Mursi of Egypt earlier this month. The movement, which enjoys a special relationship with its Egyptian counterpart, has condemned the military coup which toppled Mursi. The movement’s General Comptroller Sheikh Hammam Saeed denounced the coup and likened Mursi to a Muslim caliph. His deputy Zaki Bani Irshaid’s initial reaction was to call for the formation of a free Egyptian army similar to Syria’s. He later toned down his remarks.
MB sympathizers in Jordan also expressed angst at the military coup, America’s alleged collusion with the Egyptian Army and the conspiracy by former President Hosni Mubarak’s loyalists, or folloul as they are called, to wrestle power from the country’s first freely elected president. Some, like Islamist commentator and Al Jazeera bureau chief in Amman, Yassir Abu Hilaleh, warned that the overthrow of Mursi would boost the jihadists and radicals while exposing the hypocrisy of liberals. He wrote that anti-Islamists will never accept the democratic choice of the people when Islamists win at the polls.
Mohammad Abu Rumman, an expert in Islamist movements, pointed to failures by Mursi and the MB but reminded readers that the Egyptian people had voted six times in favor of the Islamists in Egypt in the past two years.
While the MB expressed anger, the fall of Mursi was welcomed by the Jordanian state. King Abdallah was among the first leaders to call the new interim president and congratulate him. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Joudeh was the second top Arab official to visit Cairo and meet with its leadership. The Jordanian state could hardly hide its glee that the Islamist era in Egypt had folded.
A coordinated media campaign against Jordan’s MB movement was launched in the past two weeks by two leading pro-government dailies. Commentators known for their close ties with the security apparatus lambasted the MB for inciting public opinion against Egypt’s new rulers and for meddling in the affairs of a brotherly country. Some suggested that state should resort to legal means to confront the MB movement, which is registered as a social organization and is not allowed to be active in politics.
The MB has been in the forefront of opposition groups calling for wide-ranging political reforms that include revising the powers of the king.
Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring the movement has led anti-government demonstrations and allied itself with civil and liberal groups to put pressure on the regime.
But as Egyptians became more critical of President Mursi’s authoritarian style of government public’s support for Jordan’s Islamists began to wane.
It has been some months since the MB was able to mobilize mass demonstrations. Its alliance with liberal and leftist groups has all but collapsed.
Relations between Jordan and the Islamist president in Egypt were awkward at best. King Abdallah had criticized President Mursi in a controversial magazine interview earlier this year. The state viewed the MB, which has been active in Jordan for the last six decades, as the most organized and influential of all opposition groups. The movement’s position was bolstered as Islamists took over in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. The regime believed the MB was getting ready to escalate pressure once Syrian President Bashar Assad had fallen and the Islamists assumed power there.
The turnaround in Egypt has encouraged the regime to take steps to stem the influence of the Islamists. Aside from the sustained media campaign against the MB, the state appears to be backing reformists within the movement who seek to undercut the power of the hard-liners. One such group, called Zamzam, is led by moderate figures within the MB. It has launched an initiative to reform the movement. Recently representatives of Jordanian tribes endorsed a plan to hold elections to topple hardliners in the MB top leadership and its Shoura council.
So far the hard-liners have resisted such pressures while continuing to call on the regime to adopt fundamental political reforms. Meanwhile, a number of liberal activists have expressed concern that the regime might abandon political reforms now that the Islamist threat has been contained. They believe the state will focus its efforts on weakening the MB movement from the inside instead.
That would be a grave mistake. If anything the popular movement, or hirak, has focused attention on the rising role of non-politicized young Jordanians. To this date they continue to challenge the government and insist on meaningful reforms. The Islamists remain an important player but their influence has been weakened by regional events.
Even if the regime manages to divide and weaken the MB movement it will still have to address the complaints of a rising number of Jordanians, especially the young.
It is clear that Mursi’s fall will have a direct effect on Jordan’s MB, especially its current hard-line leadership. It will spur the moderates to take over in the coming months. The government will support that, but its victory will be ephemeral. It would be a miscalculation to assume that the calls for political reforms will simply go away.

• Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.