Jordan will have a new government in a few days. That in itself is no big news, since the kingdom has had five governments in the last two years. What is special about this one is that it comes after more than a month of drawn out deliberations — first to name a new prime minister and then to agree on the composition of the cabinet. It’s a new process that King Abdullah II promised late last year in a bid to set a course for political reform, beginning with credible legislative elections and followed by consultations with the deputies to form the closest possible thing to a parliamentary government. The entire process should eventually usher in a new phase of constitutional monarchy. 

It’s the king’s way of steering the country through two years of public protests calling for political reform — Jordan’s version of the Arab Spring. No one knows if this royal recipe for reform will succeed, but in the past few months the young monarch has been able to transform himself into a champion of political reform. He has often complained that progress towards achieving his royal vision has not been fast enough.

This transformation — from being the target of public protests to becoming the main engine for political and economic reform—has taken Jordanians by surprise. It has also dampened the opposition’s ability to mobilize those in the streets. Since the king dissolved an unpopular parliament in November and ordered new elections to be held earlier this year, to be supervised by an independent body, public mood has been changing. What began as menacing popular protests two years ago — inspired by the triumph of uprisings in Tunis, Egypt, Libya and Yemen — has slowly died down into sporadic demonstrations led mainly by the country’s biggest opposition: the Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm the Islamic Action Front (IAF). The coalition of secular and religious parties and movements appears to have faded away.

In the first few months of Jordan’s Arab Spring, the monarchy, tainted by accusations of nepotism, corruption and authoritarianism, appeared to be on the retreat. The king ordered a review of the constitution and accepted some amendments that slightly restricted his powers. He formed a Constitutional Court and an independent commission to oversee elections. The opposition wanted more. They demanded more restrictions on the king’s powers to appoint and sack governments. The king resisted.