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Jordan Prime Minister Quits After Riots

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Times Staff Writer

Prime Minister Zaid Rifai, beset by growing demands for his dismissal, resigned Monday in the wake of the riots over price increases that swept across Jordan last week.

No successor was immediately named. But sources close to the Royal Palace said that King Hussein is discussing with his advisers the creation of a transitional government to oversee economic and political reforms, including preparations for what would be Jordan’s first general elections in more than 20 years.

A brief announcement broadcast by Jordan’s state television said only that Rifai, 52, had submitted the resignation of his 25-member Cabinet and that Hussein had accepted it.

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It added that the secretary generals, or deputies, for each Cabinet post would run their ministries in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed.

Widely Rumored

While it had been widely rumored that Rifai would have to resign, the swiftness of the king’s decision to remove him--without waiting to name a successor--took most observers in Amman by surprise.

Most analysts, Jordanian as well as foreign, had expected Hussein to wait at least a few months before replacing Rifai so as not to give the impression that he was capitulating to the demands of the rioters who sacked banks and government offices during four days of bloody protests over price increases.

The fact that the king decided the change could not be delayed appeared to reflect the gravity with which he views the latest crisis, which forced him to cancel a visit to Britain and to return home Sunday from a U.S. visit.

“The king has certainly wasted no time in saying that he’s back home and in charge again,” one diplomat noted.

The country remained calm Monday, with no violence reported since Friday night. The death toll from riots rose to nine, however, when a soldier injured in last week’s clashes died of his wounds.

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More than 100 people were injured in the disturbances which, although triggered by steep increases in the price of gasoline and other commodities, quickly escalated into a broadly based political protest against Rifai’s four-year-old government.

“Never before has Jordan had such a broad consensus among all strata of its society, from the poor to the educated elite, against its government,” a Jordanian political analyst said.

While the economic crisis Jordan is experiencing provided the spark for the riots, it has become obvious that pent-up political frustrations furnished the tinder for the worst civil unrest seen here since Palestinian guerrillas were expelled after bitter fighting with Hussein’s army in 1971.

“People might have accepted the price increases if they had been asked to do so. It was the suddenness, the arrogance and the lack of consultation that, coming on top of all sorts of rumors of government corruption, finally lit the fuse,” the political analyst said.

North to South

Across Jordan--from the Bedouin tribal regions of the south to the urbanized north--protesters demanded Rifai’s ouster. Although most Jordanians were shocked by the extent of the damage, nearly everyone--from village elders to the heads of the elite professional associations of Amman--supported the protesters by calling for more political freedom.

None of this criticism was directed at the king personally, but the warning implicit in a number of petitions sent to the Royal Palace was that the monarchy’s credibility would be endangered unless Hussein acted quickly.

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“By accepting Rifai’s resignation, the king is signaling that he appreciates the depth of his people’s frustration,” one diplomat said.

Several candidates are said to be in the running to succeed Rifai, who has been Jordan’s longest-serving prime minister. They include Sharif Zayed Shaker, the recently appointed head of the Royal Court, and former prime ministers Mudar Badran and Ahmed Abdul Karim Lawzi.

The head of the new government will have to preside over the second phase of an austerity agreement recently reached with the International Monetary Fund to restructure Jordan’s $6-billion foreign debt. The IMF targets call for increasing government revenues by $67 million and cutting expenditures by $32 million this year.

Since meeting those goals is likely to generate more popular discontent, Hussein is believed to be favoring the idea of a transitional government.

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