Jordan’s deteriorating social and economic conditions due to COVID-19 are driving support to Islamist parties, raising the risk of a government crackdown that could fan the flames of radicalism. Despite recording fewer than 5,000 COVID-19 cases since March, Jordan has taken a strict lockdown approach, with tight border controls and restricted incoming arrivals for tourist locations. The impact on business activity, and in particular tourism revenue (which accounts for nearly 20 percent of Jordan’s GDP), has in turn taken a steep toll country’s economy, with unemployment now expected to hit an all-time high of 25 percent by the end of this year. 

• Jordan was already struggling with a high unemployment rate of 19.1 percent prior to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in March. In the years leading up to the pandemic, Amman was also in the midst of imposing spending restructuring plans, which included unpopular income taxes, per the advisement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 
• For decades, extremist groups such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State have leveraged the country’s historically high levels of youth unemployment to recruit younger Jordanians, particularly men, shut out from the country’s formal economy. 
• In the 2000s, Jordan faced a serious al Qaeda insurgency that attacked Western interests and threatened its tourism trade. This time saw young Jordanians and Palestinian refugees willing to carry out attacks, driven by transnational jihadist ideologies. These threats still linger: In 2016, gunmen shot and killed 14 in an attack on the popular Karak Crusader Castle. 

Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood branch, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), will likely find greater support among the country’s lockdown-weary population ahead of November parliamentary elections. The IAF currently holds 10 of 130 seats in the lower house of Jordan’s parliament. Another five are held by a splinter group that typically aligns with the IAF, with the rest held by independent members of parliament loyal to King Abdullah II. The Islamist party does not hold any seats in the upper house of parliament, which is fully appointed by the king. But while the IAF is unlikely to gain a majority, its campaign rhetoric focusing on improved governance and social conditions may win it additional seats in the lower house of the country’s legislature. 

• The IAF derives its support base from rural, tribal and conservative areas of Jordan. These areas are also home to the bulk of the native Jordanian population, distinct from the country’s large Palestinian population who fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war. This makes the IAF competitive with the Bedouin political base, which is critical to the monarchy’s stability. 
• The IAF will also be able to gain votes from the Palestinian urban classes, many of whom have chafed at the COVID-19 restrictions and do not necessarily like the direction of the country’s economy under the IMF program, and want to signal their discontent to the monarchy by supporting the only realistic opposition force in the country.

The IAF’s boosted political status will enable it to better organize protests against public policies and lobby the monarchy to shift Jordan’s direction. Despite being unable to command parliament, with increased support from urban voters, the IAF will likely still have an expanded ability to organize strikes and protests after the election. Such protest activity has a demonstrated ability to change the direction of Jordanian policy, as they did when mass protests brought down Prime Minister Hani Mulki in June 2018 because of an unpopular income tax proposal.  

Jordan’s monarchy, meanwhile, will come under international pressure, in particular from close allies such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, to limit the IAF’s gains. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are key donors to Jordan, with both pledging $2.5 billion in aid to prop up the country’s economy during mass protests in 2018. But Riyadh and Abu Dhabi also oppose the Muslim Brotherhood, and want to limit its influence in fellow Arab monarchies for fear that the Islamist group will undermine those systems. 
 
An aggressive crackdown by Amman that either blocks the IAF from participating in the upcoming election or undercuts its competitiveness, however, would risk only further radicalizing Jordanians.

• Restrictions on Jordanian political activity have helped radicalize Jordanians in the past, supplying insurgents with new recruits. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for example — Jordanian who helped found al Qaeda in Iraq — began building some of his radical networks from a Jordanian prison in the 1990s.
• Amman has already cracked down on several civil society groups, including a teachers’ union, that have pushed back against its reform push. This tightening of control, however, has not yet resulted in formal bans on particular organizations.