Elections bring more women to parliament; Muslim Brotherhood is back
Nahed Hattar, a prominent Christian Jordanian journalist, was shot dead on his way to court Sunday after being charged with posting offensive material on Facebook. Hattar had previously turned himself in after Prime Minister Hani Mulki began an investigation into the journalist for posting a caricature of a bearded man in heaven smoking and in bed with women, asking God to bring him wine and cashews, on his Facebook page.
The assassination comes amidst parliamentary election results, which have ushered in political reform as Jordanian citizens voted 20 women and 16 Islamic Action Front coalition candidates into parliamentary seats, signaling an increase in both female and Muslim Brotherhood representation.
“The results are fair and they are reflecting the will of the people in general,” Mohammad Hussainy, director of the Identity Center in Jordan told The Media Line.
Jordan unveiled new parliamentary electoral laws for this election in an effort to increase democratization after King Abdullah II dissolved the previous parliament in May. These new electoral laws have divided Jordan into 23 different districts and require that all parliamentary candidates appear on open lists in their districts, thus allowing Jordanians the ability to vote for more than one candidate.
“The changing of the law for these elections gives more power to the people to choose their representatives in parliament,” Hogir Blbis, head of mission in the election network in the Arab region, told The Media Line.
This is a step towards a more representative government especially because of the quota for women and for Christians, Blbis added.
Fifteen seats of the total 130 are reserved for women. Parliament has also reserved nine seats for Christians and three seats for minorities. In this election, women won 20 seats and appeared on all but six party lists, including Islamist lists.
“The most significant result was that we had five female candidates who made it without the quota and this is a noticeable number,” Houssainy said.
The Muslim Brotherhood, on the other hand, did not fare as well as expected. After a boycott of almost 10 years, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), formed a coalition called the National Coalition for Reform (NCR) with Christian candidates, winning 16 seats in the new government. The IAF created this coalition, not based on political affiliations but in an electoral tactic to garner more support.
“Reform and justice and anti-corruption were the platforms that the Muslim Brotherhood campaigned on,” Blbis said.
The expectation was that the Brotherhood would win 15-20 seats, and they did get 16. However, out of those seats, only about eight are for members who are actually Muslim Brotherhood representatives, Houssainy added, with the remainder going to the Christian candidates in the coalition.
“All in all, this isn’t a high number and they didn’t exceed expectations,” Houssainy said. “However, having them will give more political flavor to the parliament and will for sure increase or improve discussions inside the parliament.”
Despite the increase in female and Islamist representation, the Jordanian parliament is still politically weak as most of the political power remains consolidated in the King, who must confirm every parliamentary decision. He also has veto power.
As the country is pushing for internal democratic reform, it is also looking outward. Twelve Jordanian soldiers recently conducted a secret visit to Israel to meet with the Israeli armed forces and other high ranking officials at a conference at Netanya Academic College.
While Israel and Jordan have a peace treaty and close security ties, Jordan has been hesitant to be seen as openly cooperating with Israel while it continues to control the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas that Palestinians say must make up a future Palestinian state.