Jordan Center for Social Research

POLL: Democratic Transformation and Political Reform in Jordan

September 2005

The JCSR herein presents the main findings of a national public opinion poll on various issues related to political reform in Jordan:

• Slightly less than half of Jordanians (48.3%) think that things in Jordan are going in the right direction while (44%) think that things are going in the wrong direction.
• According to respondents, the most important problems facing Jordan today are: the rising cost of living (38.2%) and unemployment (26.6%). The most important political problem is corruption (26.3 %.)
• The majority (78.8%) of Jordanians prefers a government whose power is balanced by the parliament, 71.1% support a press that is free to criticize the government, while 63.8% support judges who are independent.
• 73.9% of respondents think that peaceful political participation and protest is the most appropriate way to change the government while only 16% support violent actions to change the government.
• 36.8% would vote for candidates from the Islamic tendency while 26.6% would vote for candidates from the Jordanian nationalist tendency.
• 59.7% of respondents are in favor of keeping the current “one-person, one-vote” parliamentary election law while only 17% would like it to be changed.
• The overwhelming majority of respondents (80.2%) believe that local authorities should be elected by the people.
  59.7% of the respondents indicated that they will participate in the municipal elections if they were held in the next few months.
• 74.1% of respondents think that the freedom to choose a candidate or political party is guaranteed but only 35.2% of respondents believe that the freedom to publicly criticize the government is guaranteed.
• 80% of Jordanians agree with women running for the parliament, 76.5% running for municipal councils. Also, 68.2% agree that a woman can be appointed a minister, 64.2% an ambassador, and 56.1% a prime minister. However, 73.9% think that men in general are more fit than women to be political leaders.
• A majority (74.3%) agree that there should be a quota of seats for women in the lower house of parliament, 70.7% in the municipalities, and 70.7% in the upper house of parliament. 67.1% support an increase in the number of quota seats from 6 to 12 seats (one for each governorate) and 27.4% want the current quota for women in the parliament to be cancelled all together.
• Half of Jordanians (50.5%) are satisfied with the performance of the professional associations, whereas 26.8% are dissatisfied. Slightly less than half (48.9%) of respondents think that the associations should confine their role to professional concerns only, whereas 31.1% think that the professional associations should have both professional and political roles. 57.3% think that membership in professional associations should be voluntary whereas 28% believe that it should be mandatory.
• 87.5% feel that the differences between rich and poor in Jordan have increased in the last ten years.