Jordan’s political elite have one main question on their minds: Will newly appointed Prime Minister Omar Razzaz be allowed to carry out his promise to strike a new social contract between citizens and the state?

There are mounting concerns that the so-called deep state has failed to take in the lessons of the May 30 popular protests that succeeded in bringing down the government of Hani al-Mulki a week later. What tens of thousands of protesters were calling for was not limited to annulling the income tax draft law that was sent to parliament or sacking the government for overburdening citizens with taxes, but a complete and substantial change in running the affairs of the state. This is what the likes of former Prime Minister Taher al-Masri and former Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher have underlined separately recently.

Masri delivered a lecture on June 26 at Jordan’s World Affairs Council in which he warned that the challenge the state is facing today is to carry out belated genuine and comprehensive political, economic, administrative and social reforms. He said that changing the path and restructuring society on a civil basis is now part of the popular call. Masri added that had the state carried out these reforms in the past slowly and gradually, Jordanians would be better off today and stronger in facing local and regional challenges.

For his part, Muasher wrote an article that was published on the Carnegie Middle East Center website on June 7 in which he stated: “The main lesson the Jordanian state should learn from the current crisis is bigger than the issue of the draft income tax law — important though it is — or the rising price of fuel. There is a crisis of trust between the state and the citizen that myself and others have been writing about for years. This has reached the stage where society no longer accepts that the state manage affairs through traditional means.”