Jordan News

 Amman - The Chair of the Board of Commissioners of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), Musa Maaytah, Tuesday said, "The upcoming parliamentary elections will be the first step towards parliamentary governments."

In a meeting of the Government Communication Forum entitled: Parliamentary Elections 2024... What's New, Maaytah said, "Jordan is a strong and stable country and its democratic right is being fulfilled despite the surrounding circumstances and challenges."

Maaytah pledged "absolute transparency" in managing the parliamentary elections slated for September and ensured that the IEC would implement international standards.

"We have a law that monitors the elections and criminalises any illegal practice that affects the reputation of the elections or harms the conduct of the electoral process," he said, adding that the IEC would hold virtual elections next June.

He discussed the national mechanism to monitor election-related violence, stressing that the current election law is "more fair" to women than its predecessor by allocating 18 seats for them in local districts as a minimum.

He urged Jordanians to vote in the upcoming elections and choose, adding that political parties have a "major" interest in encouraging voter turnout.

He said that the Commission held "extensive" meetings with political parties to answer their inquiries about the executive instructions to enable them to prepare for the elections, noting that there are over 86,000 party members in Jordan.

He added that political parties have the right to announce their programmes and positions in all institutions and universities but electoral propaganda is limited to a deadline that cannot be exceeded according to the law.

Maaytah said the IEC monitors the parties' preparation for the elections according to the law and that no official complaints regarding any facts or suspicions harm the election process.

He explained that the IEC would announce on its website all the details related to the parties in terms of their number, programmes and budget, adding that the Commission plans to organise meetings with international and Arab experts to help political parties manage their affairs for the upcoming elections without interfering in their statutes.

He added that the members of the sub-election committees would take the legal oath next week and that the authority would work to increase the number of mixed polling centres, 30 per cent of which are mixed.

He noted that the number of polling centres in the upcoming elections is about 1,600 distributed throughout all regions of the Kingdom.

He added that a plan was launched in cooperation with the Higher Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (HCD) that includes an agreement to provide 95 "model" polling centres that would consider the use of sign language in all election awareness videos and training political parties to support persons with disabilities during elections.