IAF weighing participation in municipal polls

By Mohammad Ben Hussein

AMMAN - The Islamic Action Front (IAF) has announced that it will consider taking part in municipal elections next year, despite the party’s boycott of November’s parliamentary polls.

In a meeting on Saturday, the 120-member IAF shura council instructed its executive office to review the party’s position on the municipal elections, which are expected to pave the way for a decentralization policy designed to empower municipalities across the Kingdom.

A decision on participation is expected to be issued during the next party meeting in January, according to Ali Abul Sukkar, president of the IAF shura council, who underlined the need to expand the party’s outreach across the country.

“I call on the executive office to work hard and draw up plans to expand membership. I call for a special meeting to discuss plans to improve the performance of the party,” he said in an address to the council, which convened at IAF headquarters.

During the gathering, party leaders took turns criticizing what they called a “lack of reforms” in the country.

In a statement issued following the meeting, the former MP decried what he described as a “monopoly of power by the government and security apparatuses”, claiming that the government’s stated reform drive serves only as “public relations”.

Abul Sukkar also criticized the government and Parliament for their response to a fatwa issued by the party’s religious office on Jordan’s involvement in Afghanistan.

“I am perplexed by Parliament’s efforts to silence the voices of justice and suppress freedom of expression rather than carry out its monitoring and legislative roles,” he said in an address to the shura council.

Abul Sukkar said the IAF is ready to engage in dialogue with “any party” to achieve political and social reform in the country.

IAF Secretary General Hamzah Mansour described the country’s political and economic climate as “possibly the worst in the Kingdom’s history”, calling the parliamentary elections a “failure of democracy”.

“The current political situation is at the core of our troubles: The executive authority is monopolizing decisions, governments are formed on a non-democratic basis and security forces are present in all parts of life while the legislative authority is absent,” Mansour said in a speech, the text of which was posted on the party’s website.

The IAF, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, held elections at its 24 branches earlier this year to choose shura council representatives, with party “doves” gaining a 70 per cent majority over the more hard-line “hawks”.

The party has recently witnessed bitter divisions between the hawkish camp, which favours stronger ties with Hamas, and doves, who wish to sever the party’s links with the Palestinian Islamist group.

27 December 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=32944.