On the eve of the kick-off of consultations between lawmakers and Royal Court Chief Fayez Tarawneh to designate a prime minister, several House blocs held closed-door meetings to finalise their positions.
Some of these coalitions declared their stands on government formation as the country embarks on the parliamentary government experience as an ultimate goal of political reforms.
The largest bloc in parliament, the Watan (27 MPs) said that it would not accept any former prime minister to form the new government at this stage.
Observers said the move will make it difficult for the current premier to remain in office.
They argued that the incumbent premier cannot head a new government particularly after a new parliamentary coalition, consisting of the Islamic Centrist Party (15 MPs) and the Future (18 MPs) blocs said they will push to have a new premier and his Cabinet formed from within the Lower House.
Tarawneh will start his discussions with Watan and will later in the day meet with the Democratic Gathering (24 MPs), which previously demanded that its meeting with Tarawneh should take place at the Lower House premises instead of Basman Palace.
The consultations are expected to take more than a week, as parliamentary sources do not expect a new government before the middle of March.
In response to the new approach to government formation, the largest opposition group, the Islamic Action Front, issued a press release criticising the method on Sunday, as “it does not fulfil the requirements for the formation of parliamentary governments, which should be formed by the majority in parliament”.
The Lower House decided to refer the temporary draft 2013 state budget law to the Financial Committee for deliberation and feedback.
The lawmakers slammed the government for endorsing this legislation as a temporary law, a move they said was “unconstitutional”.
In his response, Ensour said his government consulted with the Constitutional Court before endorsing it, adding that “the government did not breach the Constitution”.
Deputies Khalil Atiyeh (Amman, 1st District), Mahmoud Kharabsheh (Balqa, 1st District) and Wafaa Bani Mustafa (Jerash, 1st District) urged the MPs to reject the bill and asked the government to propose a new draft state budget bill.
The legislators’ consensus, however, was set on sending this piece of legislation to the Financial and Economic Committee.
Deputies also referred the 2012 Audit Bureau report and the 2013 draft law on the budget of independent agencies to the Financial and Economic Committee.
Meanwhile, during Sunday’s meeting, deputies reached a consensus over the formation of all of the Lower House’s 14 permanent committees.
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