Calls for a constitutional monarchy in Jordan were growing ahead of a parliamentary vote of confidence on the new government, as the opposition called a pro-reform protest for Friday

Calls for a constitutional monarchy in Jordan were growing Tuesday ahead of a parliamentary vote of confidence on the new government, as the opposition called a pro-reform protest for Friday.

Hundreds of people have staged a rally in Jordan's capital, Amman, to call for the release of over eighty political prisoners. Nationalists and independent opposition figures have formed a commission for what they call a “Constitutional Monarchy Initiative” and published their first declaration Monday on Facebook.

 “The king must remain a reference, a balance between different powers and a security guarantor,” they said in the statement.

About 400 people took to the streets to protest as 27 inmates launched a hunger strike.

The anti-government protesters chanted slogans and held posters in front of the Grand Husseini Mosque in central Amman to urge King Abdullah to release their jailed relatives held at Swaqa prison, 50 kilometers south of the capital.

"The place of those who fight the Zionists should not be jail," read one slogan on a poster, in reference to those who are jailed for plotting attacks against Israeli targets.

Jordan was the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel after Egypt.