So Prime Minister Bakhit reshuffled his cabinet bringing in 9 ministers to the fold. I know, it’s not the most exciting piece of news. They’ve been described mostly as technocrats and/or diplomats.
An interesting (and a bit rare) move was bringing in a previous member of the opposition, Mohammad Oran as Minister of Political Development. One can argue that this may be a smart move on the PM’s part in light of the demand for much needed political reforms ahead of the elections next year. But then again one can also argue this may be just another to give a false impressions and misleading signals. Khalaf has more on him.
Positioning Bassem al-Russan as the Minister of Communications and Information is also an interesting move. He was the former deputy CEO of Fastlink.
Osama Dabbas, who was general manager of the Intercontinental Hotel in Aqaba is the new Tourism Ministry; an industry that he pretty much knows inside out in Jordan but like Bassem Al-Russan, mostly from the private sector position. But that’s just my opinion.
Kind of glad to see Khalid Irani still in the fold.
I think all in all, most of the cabinet as it stands today is made up mostly of university academics.
I’ve heard there’s also talk of reducing the number of Ministries by merging a few, which is a good way to reduce bureaucracy (and fire a lot of unnecessary people).