AMMAN: Polling stations opened across Jordan on Tuesday in a parliamentary election likely to produce MPs with tribal links and loyal to the government after the opposition Islamists pulled out.
Nearly 100 candidates are former MPs, and 134 are women.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm the Islamist Action Front (IAF) are boycotting the polls because of a new electoral law in May they say it was designed to limit their influence.
Seven Islamist candidates have registered as independents, defying the boycott, and now face expulsion from the powerful IAF.
Polling stations opened at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) and were set close at 7:00 pm (1700 GMT), while the government has declared Tuesday a holiday to encourage people to vote.
The government has agreed, for the first time, to allow 250 international observers to monitor the elections alongside some 3,000 local representatives of non-government organizations.
Boycott by Islamists
More than 40,000 policemen and gendarmes were deployed for election day, particularly in areas where tribal tension is expected to be high.
Experts say pro-government candidates and representatives of tribes are expected to sweep the polls in the country of 6.3 million people, expressing fears that an opposition-free parliament will affect reform.
“The boycott by the Islamists, the main opposition group in Jordan, means that we are heading for a parliament without organized opposition,” senate president Taher Masri told AFP.
Hamzah Mansur, who heads the Islamist Action Front party, said: “Reform cannot be achieved unless there is real public pressure by all possible, lawful means.”
A survey by the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies showed on Sunday that 44 percent of 1,791 Jordanians polled said they will vote for pro-government candidates while 13 percent said they will vote for tribal hopefuls and eight percent for independent Islamists.
Prime Minister Samir Rifai has promised a “fair and transparent” election and joined King Abdullah II in urging people to vote.
One-person-one-vote system
The Islamists, trade unions and the media have repeatedly attacked the controversial one-person-one-vote system first adopted in 1993, which they say produces loyalist MPs who do not represent the people.
Under this system, although there can be more than one seat in a given constituency, voters are allowed to choose only one candidate. Before 1993, voters were able to vote for all seats in their constituency.
The electoral law adopted in May increased the number of seats in the lower house to 120 from 110 and doubled a quota for women MPs to 12. There are 45 constituencies in the country.
Jordan has been without a parliament since November 2009 when the king dissolved the legislature and called an election two years early after press allegations about ineffectiveness and corruption among MPs.
Experts say fraud and vote rigging are unlikely because the majority of candidates are loyalists and the government has no interest in interfering in the process.
The authorities have said they were investigating around eight cases of vote-buying attempts, and those found guilty could face up to seven years in jail.
Source: AlArabiya.net