Source:
The New York Times
Publication date:
Jan 24 2013
The new 150-seat Parliament here will include members arrested just days before the elections on charges of vote-buying, and a cast of government loyalists will dominate a body long seen by Jordanians as being as corrupt as it is inept.
Members of previous rubber-stamp Parliaments and tribal figures who run patronage networks aided by their ties to Jordan’s authorities were also among the parliamentary winners announced Thursday by Jordan’s election commission. It was the first vote here since the start of the Arab uprisings.
And while other seats went to leftist and Islamist opposition figures, the elections — part of a package of changes offered by King Abdullah II — seemed unlikely to quell the simmering discontent that has posed a challenge to the his rule.
To the growing protest movement, the country’s weak legislators have come to symbolize the divisive policies of the government and the reluctance of Jordan’s rulers to yield power.
There’s no chance of success for the Parliament
“There’s no chance of success for the Parliament,” said Zaki Saad, the leader of the political bureau of the largest opposition party, the Islamic Action Front, which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and which boycotted the election.
The Islamist group had objected to election rules that it and many independent observers said underrepresented urban districts and gave an advantage to rural areas where the government has strong support. “The rules of the game have not changed,” Mr. Saad said. “We expected this result.”
But international observers who monitored the elections noted improvements over previous votes, which were widely seen as rigged.
The American-financed National Democratic Institute, which sent 50 observers to monitor the vote, said a number of changes, including preprinted ballots and improved procedures for processing voters, would instill a measure of confidence in a system viewed with cynicism.
It also noted, though, what it called “systemic distortions,” saying the elections remained “profoundly local contests where candidates are elected as service providers and representatives of parochial interests, rather than national legislators able to hold the executive branch to account or propose laws.”
Hassan Barari, a Jordanian political analyst, said only a few of the new lawmakers could be considered truly independent, noting that some of the Islamists who won seats belonged to a party with close ties to the government.
The latest charges of vote-buying and victories by lawmakers who had “symbiotic” relationships with the government would further erode trust, he said. “It’s not that it’s all the same faces,” he said. “It’s similar faces.”
Kareem Fahim
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/world/middleeast/jordan-elections-favo...
