Jordanian Speaker: We Will Enable Partisan Work at Parliament

Jordan’s new Speaker Ahmed Al-Safadi said the House of Representatives was required to encourage collective action within political blocs and to enable partisan work within Parliament.

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, he noted that he would seek to build consensus on the legislature in order to amend the rules of the procedure, with the aim of preventing stalling and repetition.

Safadi was elected to his post on Nov. 13 with a majority of 104 votes – an unprecedented result in the history of Parliament – paving the way for the upcoming councils that will be chosen in accordance with the provisions of the new electoral law, which allocated 41 seats to parties at the level of the general constituency.

The current Parliament approved a package of legislation to modernize political work, starting with constitutional amendments and the electoral and party laws, the speaker said.

“Today, Parliament is required to organize its internal work in order to enable the future councils to have spaces for discussion within the parliamentary committees,” he remarked.

Safadi said he was looking forward to building party councils that represent the various political groups, through a pluralistic approach that allows the representation of all programs and ideas.

At the external level, he underlined the need for action to respond to the daily brutal Israeli practices against the Palestinian people, and the violations of Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa compound, and Islamic and Christian sanctities.

According to Safadi, the Parliament must move away from emotional outbursts to action in terms of documenting the practices of the occupying state at international forums, and pressing for justice for the Palestinians, leading to the declaration of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

In this regard, he stressed that the Parliament would always support King Abdullah II in his moderate stances on the need to return to negotiations to achieve the rights of the Palestinian people, who are a supreme Jordanian national interest.