Jordanian King Abdullah II is expected to appoint his royal court chief Faisal al-Fayez as Prime Minister this week to lead a streamlined government with more women members, according to a high-level official.
51-year-old Fayez will be appointed on Thursday and begin talks on setting up a government with a maximum of twenty members, the official said.
He will replace Ali Abu Ragheb, who has been Prime Minister in the Jordanian Kingdom since June 2000. "The new government will be smaller with mainly young technocrats," AFP cited another official as saying.
The information ministry will be scrapped in the new government, which will include two or three women, compared to the only woman minister in the current lineup, according to the official.
He added the Fayez government would have a "new style" of doing business in line with the King's vision for modernizing Jordan.
Ministers will be chosen "on the basis of ability and their work program, not their geographic roots", he said.
Abu Ragheb's current 28-member government was sworn in on July 21, a month after Jordan held its first parliamentary election since 1997.
Fayez, a member of the Bani Sakher tribe, one of Jordan's biggest, studied in the UK and holds a degree in international relations from Boston University. A former court protocol chief, he has headed the court since March. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
