Unending crises undermine Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood
Tough times lie ahead for the Muslim Brotherhood. Once Jordan’s largest political party and a fiery voice for reform, it has been discredited by the state and undermined by internal bickering.
Political, ideological and organisational schisms between the party’s hawks and doves, the humiliating defeat of the parent party in Egypt and the failure of the Jordanian branch to find alternatives to the country’s political and economic woes resulted in Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood splitting into factions.
Traditionally, the Brotherhood had been loyal to Jordan’s Hashemite dynasty despite policy differences, especially on relations with Israel. The group advocates Israel’s annihilation.
However, with the Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt in 2011, the Jordanian branch shifted positions, publicly criticising the government and daring to call for diminishing the king’s absolute power under the constitution.
The group’s popularity eroded due to public revulsion at crimes committed by fanatic Islamists, such as the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front in Iraq and Syria.
But what was particularly niggling to many was the ambivalent Brotherhood reaction to the killing of a Jordanian Air Force lieutenant who was burned alive in a cage by ISIS militants in January 2015, days after his plane was downed over Syria.
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