Parliamentary elections in Jordan, January 2013

Abstract

Jordan held its first elections since the beginning of the "Arab Spring" on January 23, 2013. Against the backdrop of region-wide mobilization in the Middle East, which led to the ousting of authoritarian President Mubarak in Egypt in 2011 and the civil war in Syria, the elections to the 17th lower house of parliament in Jordan were widely considered a political litmus test for King Abdullah II. Jordan experienced its own opposition mobilization throughout 2011 and 2012, with unprecedented criticism of the monarch. At the same time, the general political mood in Jordan has still overwhelmingly been one of gradual reform, not revolution. Therefore, the parliamentary elections of January 2013 must be seen in the context of an increasingly politicized and frustrated Jordanian public on the one hand, and a rather successful royal political survival strategy on the other.