Jordan’s King Abdullah II has sworn in a new government led by Prime Minister Bisher al-Khaswaneh and he is already facing a hard task of growing the economy that is dealing with a sharp economic crisis having to do with the corona virus pandemic. Khasawneh was designated on Wednesday to replace Omar al-Razzaz, who was appointed in the summer of 2018 to defuse the biggest protests in years over tax increases to reduce Jordan’s large public debt. In the past, prime ministers have been appointed for as little as one month or as long as three years, mainly to deal with the conflict they were set in office form and once that was taken care of, they were dismissed. So the timing on the switch of prime minister makes perfect sense. The ceremony came at the time when concern was rising in the country due to economic conditions that are worsening and curbs on public freedoms under emergency laws to contain the spread of COVID-19. Jordan is working with its worst economic crisis in many years, with unemployment and poverty worsened by the pandemic. The country has registered 24,926 coronavirus cases and 191 related deaths and the government is being globally criticized for the lack of response to the outbreak.
To me, the safety of their people is much more important than fixing their economy so I think that Khasawneh needs to get their cases under control, and then deal with the falling economy. That being said he’s going to have to act fast. Jordan, which is hosting more than 650,000 Syrian refugees, remains heavily reliant on foreign aid. So he also needs to make sure that he is consistently keeping up with other countries that they rely on, so that they can continue to get that aid from them. Hopefully with a new Prime Minister in power, Jordan will be able to fix its issues and work to grow their economy and eventually start to lean off having to constantly have that aid.