The King of Jordan accepts the resignation of the Prime Minister

"His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday accepted the resignation of Omar Razzaz's cabinet and mandated it to continue as an interim government until a new prime minister is appointed and a new cabinet is formed," a statement from the Jordanian Royal House said.

King Abdullah II of Jordan accepted the prime minister's resignation on Saturday. The Jordanian leader sent a letter to Al-Razaz accepting his resignation and expressing his appreciation for the government

On 27 September the monarch announced the dissolution of the Jordanian parliament under a constitutional provision that caused the government to resign within a week.

Despite the cabinet's efforts to establish plans and programmes and implement priorities, it is important to learn from the mistakes that marked aspects of the response to COVID-19, with daily refinement of methods to resolve them, the king said in the letter.

In his resignation letter, Al-Razaz said his government had succeeded at times and also made mistakes, but tried to follow the right course for the service of Jordan and its citizens.

Al-Razaz said that COVID-19 had an impact on his cabinet's priorities for 2020, and that safeguarding public health and welfare became the main objective.

King Abdullah appointed Prime Minister Omar al-Razaz in the summer of 2018 to defuse the biggest protests seen in the kingdom in years against tax increases decided at the request of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce the country's significant public debt.  The head of government replaced Hani Mulki, who had to resign owing to the widespread protests in Jordan over the fiscal measures imposed to overcome the economic crisis. These were indicated by the IMF as guidelines for reversing the nation's economic decline, including key fiscal reforms within the new Income Tax Law, measures aimed at increasing productivity and investment, and the adjustment of banking interest rates.

Since then, the popular rejection of the economic recipes received has been evident, from the time Mr Mulki addressed the problem until he took charge of this Al-Razaz, who is accused of not getting involved in society's real problems and remaining only on the surface. In November last year a crisis in the government made it necessary to reshuffle the executive, the fourth change since Al-Razaz's appointment.

During Al-Razaz's government, Jordan's Court of Cassation, which corresponds to the highest judicial authority, issued a ruling ordering the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood group in the country.

Jordan had become a breeding ground for the Muslim Brothers in the region, which could have been one of the reasons for the Court of Cassation's decision to dissolve, as explained by the analyst Sami Moubayed in the European Eye on Radicalization.