Some shops in the provincial cities of Maan, Tafila and Karak announced a closure of business on Wednesday in solidarity with the striking lorry drivers, witnesses and drivers said.Īnger with the authorities over worsening living standards, corruption and high fuel prices has in the past triggered civil unrest in Jordan.
The crisis has resulted in congestion in the country's main Red Sea port of Aqaba where cargo has piled up and has disrupted normal trailer-truck transport of imported goods to the capital Amman and other cities. Truck drivers have launched partial work stoppages and sit-ins over the last week, mainly in Jordan's impoverished southern provinces, to demand that the government reduce diesel prices, protesting that mounting costs have led to losses for their businesses. Security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowds.Ī video on social media showed the school buses being set on fire in the city of Karak (central Jordan), while other footage showed the closure of Jerash Bridge. Shops in some Jordanian provincial cities shut on Wednesday in solidarity with thousands of lorry drivers, most of them independent operators, who have staged several days of sporadic strikes in protest at high fuel prices, truckers and witnesses said.Īfter protests had erupted Tuesday night demonstrators blocked main roads with burning tyres.
The political class in the meanwhile is divided between those who are trying to help mitigate the crisis and those who are using it to push the Bishr Khaswanah cabinet to step down. The Jordanian government has failed to contain the current truckers’ strike while the work stoppages and solidarity protests are expanding to a point where Jordan watchers fear the kingdom could be pushed to the brink of civil disobedience and chaos.Ĭonfronted with the growing upheaval, the government is unsure of the approach to take.
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