King Abdullah II of Jordan has sacked his government in the wake of street protests and has asked an ex-army general to form a new cabinet, Jordan's Royal Palace has announced.
King Abdullah's move on Tuesday comes after thousands of Jordanians took to the streets, inspired by anti-government protests in Tunisia and Egypt. Jordanians had been calling for the resignation of prime minister Samir Rifai who is blamed for a rise in fuel and food prices and slowed political reforms.
A Jordanian official said the monarch officially accepted the resignation of Rifai, a wealthy politician and former court adviser, and asked Marouf Bakhit to form a new cabinet.
"[Bakhit] is a former general and briefly ambassador to Israel who has been prime minister before. He's someone who would be seen as a safe pair of hands," Rosemary Hollis, professor of Middle East policy studies at London's City University, said.
"I wouldn't see it as a sign of liberalisation. With his previous premiership, he talked the talk of reform but little actually happened," she said.
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