The two Houses of Parliament on Wednesday submitted their replies to His Majesty King Abdullah's Speech from the Throne, vowing cooperation with other branches of government to fulfill the King's vision for development.

In the Senate's response, delivered by its president, Zeid Rifai, before the King at Raghadan Palace, he said: “The Senate will support the government to help it carry out all its programmes in the areas of priority, in pursuance of your Royal directives.”

Rifai said the Senate highly appreciates His Majesty's vision on the need to link socio-economic development to political development, in order to expand the base of participation in the decision-making and implementation processes and promote the principles of transparency, accountability and equal opportunities by following a decentralized local governance approach.

He also emphasised that expanding the political participation on the national level is one of the main aims of the drive towards development and prosperity.

Addressing the King, he said: “You have exerted great efforts to urge different brackets of the society, especially the women and the young people, to participate in political life, elections and public activism.”

The Senate president concluded by saying that Jordan is a country with a message that employs its international relations to serve the issues of the Muslims and Arabs, foremost of which is the Palestinian issue, referring also to King's support for the Iraqi people.

Speaker of the House Abdul Hadi Majali echoed similar remarks, saying the House is looking for a nationwide dialogue “to discuss the next steps to promote people's political participation and stand up to the challenges associated with regional developments”.