Jordan Times
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Preparations complete for November polls - Fayez
AMMAN (JT) - Parliamentary elections will be held on November 20 as scheduled and all the necessary preparations have been made, Minister of Interior Eid Fayez reiterated on Saturday.
In an interview with Jordan News Agency, Petra, moderated by the agency’s director, Ramadan Rawashdeh, the minister stressed the importance of voters casting their ballots so that the results of the elections will truly represent the people’s choice.
Commenting on the government’s position regarding different political factions, the minister emphasised that the government treats all political parties on an equal footing and expressed its readiness to meet with members of all factions to ensure broad participation in the elections
In response to a question on the prime minister’s meeting with key figures of the Muslim Brotherhood, Fayez said discussions focused on the electoral process and described the dialogue as “responsible”.
Fayez and Minister of Public Sector Reform and State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Thneibat also attended the meeting earlier this month.
Stressing that the elections will be free and fair, Fayez said the government has not provided any guarantees to any party or group and will not do so, pointing out that the only guarantees for open and transparent elections are His Majesty King Abdullah’s directives.
The government will abide by the Monarch’s directives and the elections will be held in compliance with the law, he added.
The number of eligible voters, which includes those who reached the age of 18 in January, is 3.4 million, out of the Kingdom’s total population of 5.9 million, the minister pointed out.
A total of 3,997 ballot boxes have been prepared for the electoral process and will be distributed among 1,428 polling centres across the Kingdom to facilitate the voting process, the minister added.
Fayez said six seats have been allocated for women in the Lower House as in previous elections, expressing hope that women will be able to win more seats through competition.
Referring the one-person, one-vote system, Fayez said there are over 121 electoral systems worldwide, and each country adopts the system that meets its needs, adding that this formula meets the country’s needs at this point, but it may change in the future.
“We think that the one person, one-vote formula, under which elections were conducted in 1993, 1997 and 2003, is suitable,” the minister said.
Opposition parties, especially the Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front, have charged that the system - introduced by a temporary law in 1993 - favours tribalism and produces political parliaments.
Citing voter turnout in previous elections, Fayez said it stood at 58 per cent in 2003, with the highest number of votes registered in tribal dominated areas, for example, the southern Jordan Valley, where it was 89 per cent, compared to 42 per cent in Amman.