Jordan Times
Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Women step up municipal elections campaign

By Rana Husseini
 
AMMAN — In preparation for July’s municipal elections, dozens of women gathered in the Khalda and Um Al Summaq districts of the capital on Monday to express solidarity and officially register for the upcoming polls.

The event is part of several planned activities organised in cooperation with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to encourage women to register for the elections.

“This is a call to all Jordanian women to head to the registration stations as a first step to elect members of the municipal councils,” Jordanian National Commission for Women Secretary General Asma Khader said.

She told The Jordan Times that the idea is also to draw attention to the fact that the registration deadline is May 23.

“We hope the turnout for registration will be high because these elections are an important first step for women to seek more seats in future parliamentary elections,” added Khader, an activist and former minister.

Last week, Minister of Municipal Affairs Nader Thuheirat, announced that a total of 589,097 citizens — 296,377 females and 292,720 males — have so far registered to take part in the elections, slated for Tuesday, July 17.

In the Municipalities Law, endorsed by the Parliament earlier this year, the government allocated no less than 20 per cent of the seats for women.

The law also lowered the voting age from 19 to 18 in order to expand the voter base.

In the 2003 municipal elections, only 5 of the 46 women who ran won, prompting the government to appoint 97 women to the local councils.

Currently, around 8 per cent of municipal council seats are filled by women, with the majority appointed by the government.

“I came here today to register and run for the upcoming elections because I believe in serving my community through the municipality,” 50-year-old Kulthum Abbadi told The Jordan Times.

Abbadi, who is running for the Khalda District, said her focus will be on development projects and services, including trying to find a solution to the traffic problem in the capital.

Lawyer Ghada Hijjawi, who is running in Zarqa, said she travelled to the capital on Monday to express solidarity with women running in Amman.

“I am here to show that it is important for women to be serving in the municipalities. In Zarqa for example, the council is mostly male-dominated and family and child services are at the bottom of their agenda,” Hijjawi said.

Hijjawi said if she wins in Zarqa, she will focus on building more public parks for families there.

“Most of the public parks we used to have in Zarqa were designated for investment projects and families and children do not have an outdoor facility to go to,” she said.