{"id":947,"date":"2010-11-09T12:44:28","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T12:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/?p=947"},"modified":"2010-11-09T12:44:28","modified_gmt":"2010-11-09T12:44:28","slug":"jordan-votes-in-polls-boycotted-by-islamist-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2010\/11\/09\/947\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordan votes in polls boycotted by Islamist opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-left: 5px; float: right;\" alt=\"votes-polls\" src=\"images\/stories\/news\/votes-polls.jpg\" width=\"253\" height=\"189\" \/>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.<\/div>\n<p>  <!--more-->  <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Around 2.5 million Jordanians are eligible to vote at 1,492 polling stations, choosing from 763 candidates vying for a four-year term in the 120-seat lower house of parliament, with 12 reserved for women.<br \/>Nearly 100 candidates are former MPs, and 134 are women.<br \/>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.<br \/>Seven Islamist candidates have registered as independents, defying the boycott, and now face expulsion from the powerful IAF.<br \/>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.<br \/>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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boycott by Islamists<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>More than 40,000 policemen and gendarmes were deployed for election day, particularly in areas where tribal tension is expected to be high.<br \/>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.<br \/>&#8220;The boycott by the Islamists, the main opposition group in Jordan, means that we are heading for a parliament without organized opposition,&#8221; senate president Taher Masri told AFP.<br \/>Hamzah Mansur, who heads the Islamist Action Front party, said: &#8220;Reform cannot be achieved unless there is real public pressure by all possible, lawful means.&#8221;<br \/>A survey by the University of Jordan&#8217;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.<br \/>Prime Minister Samir Rifai has promised a &#8220;fair and transparent&#8221; election and joined King Abdullah II in urging people to vote.<\/p>\n<p><strong>One-person-one-vote system<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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.<br \/>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.<br \/>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.<br \/>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.<br \/>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.<br \/>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.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: AlArabiya.net<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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