Jordan Times
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
'Gov’t seeking to increase
women’s representation in Parliament'
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN - Minister of Political Development Musa Maaytah on Monday said the
government is seriously thinking of increasing women’s presence in the next
Lower House of Parliament.
“We are exploring all possibilities,” he said, including increasing the quota of
women MPs from six to 12 or raising the percentage of seats allocated to women
based on the total number of deputies.
“Nothing is clear yet because the election committee is still examining the
election system itself,” the minister told The Jordan Times in a phone
interview.
He noted that the election committee is reviewing several suggestions that were
presented by civil society and the women’s movement, including increasing the
seats to 12 so that all governorates will be represented in the Lower House.
A second option, he added, is to increase the quota by 20 per cent, which will
also lead to an increase in the number of female representatives.
The government first introduced a six-seat women’s quota ahead of the 2003
parliamentary elections.
Four years later, seven women were elected to the Lower House: Six via the quota
system, and the seventh through direct elections.
Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) Secretary General Asma Khader
commended the government’s intentions.
“We praise the government’s intentions because in the end it will lead to a
stronger women’s representation in Parliament,” she told The Jordan Times.
In 2007, women‘s groups voiced their frustration after the government of Marouf
Bakhit turned down their request to double the number of seats allocated to
women.
At the time, Bakhit called on the women’s movement to support “qualified women
to run for the upcoming elections and encourage Jordanian women to vote for
their peers instead of depending on the quota”.
Before the quota was introduced, only two women had ever served in the Lower
House: Toujan Faisal, who won a Circassian seat in the 1993 elections, and Nuha
Maaytah, who won a seat through parliamentary by-elections in 2001.
A UNIFEM study released in March 2007 attributed women’s failure to gain
parliamentary seats in larger numbers to social and political factors, including
a lack of trust in Jordanian society that women are capable of working in
politics.
Other obstacles included the one-person, one-vote formula which deterred many
women from running, and the lack of financial resources for female candidates.