Reforming Jordan

Ranya Kadri and Isabel Kershner have an article in The New York Times about Jordan:

Thousands of people demonstrated peacefully for political reform in Amman, the capital, and in other Jordanian towns on Friday, with opposition forces drawing the largest crowds since the weekly Friday protests began eight weeks ago. The opposition also expanded its demands. The police estimated the number of protesters in the capital as 6,000, but organizers said that more than 10,000 people had turned out.
Activists from the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition groups said that the large turnout was a reaction to the violence that erupted last week, when government supporters clashed with a relatively small group of several hundred demonstrators who were calling for political change, injuring eight people. The protesters described being attacked by “thugs” wielding wooden clubs and iron bars.
At the rallies on Friday, Jordanians were calling, among other things, for an end to corruption, more democracy, and for a return to the original formulation of the country’s 1952 constitution, without its numerous amendments, a step that would translate into less power for the king.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, a crucial American ally, has been contending with an economic crisis in the country he has reigned over, with sweeping powers, for the last twelve years. The protests represent the first serious challenge to his rule.
Early this month he dismissed his government , replacing the prime minister with Marouf al-Bakhit, who had served before in the post and is a widely considered not to be corrupt.
But opposition activists are calling for a more fundamental constitutional overhaul. “There has been an increase in the demands we are raising,” said Zaki Saad, head of the political bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood. “The regime is not serious about real reform,” he said, accusing the government of procrastination.
Naher Hattar, a political activist from Jayeen, a new coalition of leftists, unionists, and retired generals who organized the first protest on 7 January, said: “The main demand now was to go back to the 1952 constitution. This would be a step forward.”