Jordan Times
Wednesday, June 16, 1999
Opposition parties take another swing at drafting Elections Law
By Tareq Ayyoub
AMMAN — The failure of an opposition parties coalition sub-committee to come up with a draft election law to the satisfaction of all concerned has prompted the party leaders to send the panel back to the drawing board.
Following a meeting on Monday, the party leaders said they hope to finalise a draft election law to be submitted to the government next week.
They dismissed a local news report that Monday's meeting was rife with conflict, saying that the sub-committee could not arrive at a consensus on proposals to the draft law and, therefore, the panel had been asked to try again.
Fu'ad Dabour, secretary general of the Baath Progressive Party, said the opposition parties did succeed in reaching a consensus on recommending the amendment of the one-person, one-vote system to a multi-vote system.
He said Monday's meeting, which included representatives of the Islamic Action Front and other leftist and pan-Arab parties, had proposed allowing registered citizens to vote for as many Lower House seats allocated to their voting districts.
He said the parties also agreed to recommend that the number of voting districts in the Kingdom be raised from the current 20 to 33 districts, with each allotted three seats except the Bedouin districts.
The current distribution of seats that make up the 80-member Lower House allots three seats each to the three Bedouin districts.
Dabour said the party leaders differed on whether to propose a quota for political parties based on “proportional representation.”
“According to this proposed system, a certain number of seats should be allocated to the current 20 political parties, and each party should win a certain percentage of votes in order to place their candidates in the House,” Dabour said.
Last week, opposition leaders met with Prime Minister Abdur-Ra'uf S. Rawabdeh, who called upon them to come up with a draft law to replace the existing one.
Rawabdeh said his government will enter a dialogue with these parties to finalise the draft law that will be presented to the Lower House in November.
Many opposition parties boycotted the 1997 parliamentary election following the introduction of the one-person, one-vote system, which some observers perceived as targeting the influential Muslim Brotherhood Movement.
Secretary General of the Islamic Action Front Abdul Latif Arabiyat said his party has called for including more alternatives in the draft law before submitting it to the government.
“This is nothing but a draft law that is subject to more debate with the government, and we hope that we will come up with a new law that will satisfy our demands,” Arabiyat said.
During their meeting on Monday, opposition parties agreed that a judge must supervise the election rather than the interior minister.
They also agreed that personal identification cards should replace the voter registration card, which may say were easy to forge.
The opposition leaders are to hold a meeting by the end of this week to finalise the draft law then send it to the prime minister by mid-next week.