August 20, 2007	Monday	Sha’aban 6, 1428

AMMAN, Aug 19: Jordan’s King Abdullah issued a decree on Sunday dissolving parliament and told the government to prepare for multi-party polls later this year, officials said.

They said the decree dissolving the 110-member parliament, whose four-year term formally ended last April, and the call to prepare for elections, was a clear sign that the monarch would not use his constitutional right to delay the polls.

The government is expected to set an election date this week, probably in November.

Conservative politicians had urged the king to delay elections because they fear the opposition Islamist movement, which seeks political change through peaceful means, may make electoral gains similar to those of their ideological allies in the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Turkey.—Reuters