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Author: Rory McCarthy, Associate Professor in Politics and Islam, Durham University
Original article: https://theconversation.com/jordan-joins-regional-push-to-sideline-islamist-opposition-255243
The Jordanian authorities have banned the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition movement in the kingdom, in a major new crackdown. On Wednesday April 23, security forces raided Brotherhood offices, confiscating assets and property, and outlawed all of the group’s activities.
One week earlier, 16 Brotherhood members were arrested for allegedly plotting attacks on targets inside Jordan using rockets and drones. The Brotherhood, whose members Jordanian interior minister Mazen al-Faraya says “operate in the shadows and engage in activities that could undermine stability and security”, has denied any links to the attack plots.
The ban on the Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that wants a greater role for religion in public life, comes at a time when the Jordanian government is facing intense pressure over the war in Gaza.
The Brotherhood organised months of demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians. It has also been vocal in its support for the Palestinian armed group Hamas, and has demanded the cancellation of Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel.
At the same time, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has come under heavy pressure from the Donald Trump administration in the US to resettle Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank. If he were to agree, the move would risk being seen as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
The Jordanian authorities have had an uneasy relationship with the Brotherhood since the late 1980s, when the kingdom’s political system opened up. They have looked to curb its influence.
In 2016, the Brotherhood’s headquarters in the capital, Amman, was closed and its assets were transferred to a new organisation called the Association of the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood, known as the “permitted” Muslim Brotherhood. As ideological splits emerged in the movement, the authorities have tried to exploit internal divisions.
The latest crackdown represents a striking repressive turn. It marks a shift away from containing the movement to excluding it from public life.
Yet the Brotherhood remains popular. In September 2024, the Islamic Action Front, the political party affiliated with the movement, surprised observers by winning parliamentary elections. It took 31 seats in the 138-seat parliament, securing victory in constituencies across the country in its best election performance in more than three decades.
Its success was largely down to the Brotherhood’s demonstrations in support of Palestinians. These demonstrations resonated in Jordan, where around half the population is of Palestinian origin. The party also benefited from changes in the electoral laws prior to the election, which gave more weight to political parties and less to independent candidates.
But under Jordan’s authoritarian system, the king holds most of the power, especially in internal security and foreign affairs. The palace tightly controls political life. So the Islamic Action Front was not invited to join the new government, which is made up of pro-monarchy parties.
The key question now is whether the authorities will also ban the Islamic Action Front, despite its electoral gains.
Conflict with the crown
Even before the latest crackdown, Islamists in Jordan feared a confrontation with the authorities. Many suspected the palace wanted to close the Brotherhood movement and leave a weakened party that might be more easily contained.
During a visit to Jordan shortly after the elections in September, one senior Islamic Action Front figure told me: “They [the monarchy] just want a party in a superficial form. A party without any presence.”
Although the Brotherhood had been under pressure, it was still able to operate most of its activities. Senior party members even took part in a royal committee on “political modernisation” in 2021, which drew up reforms to change the electoral laws to strengthen political parties.
Yet many in the Brotherhood feared a confrontation with the palace was coming. One senior Brotherhood figure told me in October 2024: “The Brotherhood is a vast, widespread organisation with a social and a political presence. A clash between the state and the Brotherhood would have negative effects on society and on the legitimacy of the political system.”
Jordan’s Brotherhood is not alone in facing a crisis. Other Islamist organisations across the region are experiencing political setbacks, more than a decade after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings seemed to offer them new opportunities.
In Tunisia, where a democratic transition has been sharply reversed since 2021, dozens of leaders from the Islamist Ennahda party have been jailed.
The arrests were part of a broad wave of repression against regime critics, including politicians, judges, lawyers and human rights activists. Ennahda, which spent a decade in government between 2011 and 2021, has suffered internal splits.
In Morocco, the Justice and Development party, an Islamist party which also spent a decade in government from 2011, suffered a heavy defeat in the most recent elections in 2021.
The party’s losses were partly a result of restrictions at the time of the vote. These included new rules about how seats were apportioned and the fact that some party candidates were disqualified from running.
But the losses were also because of internal disputes after Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani signed a normalisation agreement with Israel in 2020 to avoid a confrontation with the monarchy, which controls foreign affairs.
In Kuwait, parliament was suspended in 2024 because the ruling emir, Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, complained about political gridlock. This kept all opposition parties, including Islamists, out of the political process. And in Algeria, Islamist parties have been co-opted or marginalised since the bitter civil war of the 1990s.
Opinion polls show that many people in the Middle East want to see a significant role for religion in public life. But rulers across the region are increasingly wary of Islamist parties, which want not only to introduce a more conservative social agenda but to challenge undemocratic regimes.
Rory McCarthy receives funding for his academic research from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust.