AMMAN
—
Independent Election Commission (IEC) spokesperson Mohammad Al-Rawashdeh said
that 1,363,213 people voted in the elections that took place on Tuesday; the
voter turnout rate was 29.64 percent of the 4,599,602 eligible voters registered
on the final voter lists.
اضافة اعلان
Voter
turnout in Amman stood at 14.75 percent, while in Zarqa it reached 16.96
percent.
“With
regard to the low voter turnout in Amman and Zarqa, we at IEC, do not have
specific reasons, but the diverse economic, industrial, and agricultural
activity in the two governorates, and the relative availability of services and
infrastructure there make local and municipal elections less of a priority, whereas
peripheral governorates need representative councils and vote heavily in search
of development services,” said Rawashdeh.
Al-Hayat Center for Civil Society Development (Rased) said that 75 candidates became mayors
for the first time, 15 were re-elected for the first time, and 10 for the
second time.
According
to the center, in the Karak governorate nine out of the 10 mayors were elected
for the first time, Irbid governorate has 15 new mayors, Mafraq 14, and in
Zarqa governorate five of the seven former mayors retained on their position.
Ten
party members made it to the position of mayor as well: five from the National
Coalition Party (formerly Zamzam and the Islamic Center Party), four from the
National Charter Party, and one, in Ramtha, from the Jordanian National Youth
Party.
Results
also showed that 68 women became members of municipal councils, provincial
councils, and the
Amman Municipality Council, outside the quota, winning 27
percent of the total allocated seats.
Rased
Director General Amer Bani Amer said that this year’s municipal and provincial
council elections witnessed the highest number of voters in the history of Jordan’s
local elections.
According
to political analyst
Amer Al-Sabaileh, “the low voter participation in Amman
and Zarqa is due to several reasons, the most important being the nature of
these elections, which is primarily tribal, especially in the governorates; another
is that local councils do not meet the demands of citizens, so people were
reluctant to vote”.
He stressed
that citizens’ “lack of confidence and the feeling that they are outside the
political process resulted in a reluctance to participate in the electoral
process, and since this is not consistent with the demands of the government, it
is a form of punishing the political system at no cost”.
Meanwhile,
Senator Talal Al-Shorafat said that the low voter turnout in Amman and Zarqa “is
linked to tribal competition”, that in Amman, people are preoccupied with
economic issues, and that a large percentage of Jordanians living abroad could
not participate.
He
added that the
government is working to strengthen citizens’ trust “through
developing the political system and administrative reforms”, which will
eventually lead to parliamentary governments and to more participation in the
political and decision-making processes.
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