'Voters sought change in parliamentary elections'

By Hani Hazaimeh

AMMAN - Political analysts on Thursday agreed that voters in Tuesday's parliamentary elections sought change despite having limited choices, but were split over whether the new Lower House will be substantially different from the last.

Around 70 per cent of the winners in the November 9 ballot are first-time parliamentarians, which commentators said was an indicator of the public's frustration with the performance of the previous Chamber and a desire to bring change into the country's political life.

"We expected to see this number of new deputies make it to Parliament,” Al Arab Al Yawm columnist Fahed Kheitan told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

He cited “the failure of the previous Chamber to interact with the voter community and reflect their concerns and interests in their deliberations.”

Although the newcomers have no background in parliamentary politics, Kheitan noted that the majority of them have political affiliations and have already been involved in politics in other positions.

He said the new Parliament has potential to be stronger and more active than past chambers provided that it forms strong, permanent and independent committees, noting that committees in the previous Chamber were dominated by the powerful National Current bloc headed by then-speaker Abdul Hadi Majali.

Political analyst and pollster at the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies Mohammad Masri disagreed, saying that while the new make-up of Parliament may reflect voters’ desire for change, it also reflects an election that was decided largely on tribal lines.

“There is no reasonable explanation for the failure of prominent figures who had previously secured seats in Parliament for several terms. However, the similarity of candidates’ platforms and their failure to bring major issues into focus made the voter look for change,” he told The Jordan Times, adding that the absence of debate over important issues caused candidates and voters alike to concentrate on tribal affiliations rather than political agendas.

Masri added that some voters, particularly those with tribal affiliations, went to the polls with personal rather than political agendas, which he argued led to vote buying.

“The other factor that can explain this composition of the House was the Muslim Brotherhood’s absence in the elections,” he said, referring to the boycott by the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm.

“It [the boycott] left a significant imprint on the results.”

Columnist and political analyst Oraib Rentawi agreed with Masri that the new Chamber is unlikely to bring the change voters were seeking, noting that the majority of its members are either tribal loyalists or former employees of public institutions.

He also noted that fewer than 15 per cent of the new MPs are Jordanians of Palestinian origin, the lowest since Jordan’s administrative disengagement from the West Bank in 1988. There is no official figure on the size of Jordanians of Palestinian origin, but unofficial estimates have put it at around 50 per cent.

“This segment of the voters are concentrated in the country’s three major cities: Amman, Irbid and Zarqa,” Rentawi explained, adding that the IAF boycott caused many of these voters to stay home or sell their votes to tribal candidates.

Voter turnout in Tuesday’s polls reached only 34.4 per cent in Amman and 36 per cent in Zarqa, well below the national average of 53 per cent. In comparison, turnout reached as high as 81.8 per cent in the Northern Badia District and 80.3 per cent in the Southern Badia.

12 November 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=31807.