Election Fiesta-Part II
Last Wednesday, I was invited by Aroub Soubh to attend a ” public debate” between candidates running for parliament in Amman’s third district.The debate was organised by ‘Sawtouna‘, a project by the Young Entrepreneurs Association (YEA) that aims at encouraging parliament to pass resolutions to facilitate small businesses’ start up procedures and reduce the bureaucracy associated with registering and legalising small businesses in the kingdom, and hosted by the Jordanian Kuwaiti bank.
Six candidates were present at the debate, four of whom were Muslims out which were two women, and two were Christians. As such division would be unnecessary in an ideal situation, it is worth mentioning here that under the current election law, which is based on one person one vote!, out of the 110 seats in total for the lower house of parliament, there are 27 quota seats assigned to women and religious and ethnic minorities as follows..
Nine seats are assigned for Bedu in their districts , and an equal number of seats for Christians distributed nationally
In order to ensure participation of women in the parliament, the election law has set aside six seats for the women who, countrywide, receive the highest percentage of votes in their districts. If a woman wins her seat outright, it is not considered part of the quota.
There are also 3 seats dedicated to Circassians/Chechens in certain districts in Amman and Zarqa.
The one person one vote system makes it difficult for one party to hold control of the parliament,as constituents can only vote for one candidate running in their districts, they cannot choose to vote for a party list of candidates, it was devised to insure intellectual diversity within the members of parliament.Something, some people might say contradicts with the fundamental aspects of democracy, as it’s the rule of the majority! ,though a closer look into the political situation in Jordan could reveal otherwise.
As the Islamic movement constitutes the only powerful party that is strong enough to influence politics, according to survey published by the Centre of Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan (CSS) the majority of Jordanians don’t see the Islamic movement as a party they would belong to or completely support!, so it would be unfair for those people if the Islamic movement won the majority of seats in the parliament, just because it’s the only organised political movement in the country!.
There are many parties in Jordan that have various agendas from socialists and leftists to centrists, liberals, and right wing, but the problem is that these political forces are small, weak, scattered and disorganised that they don’t influence national politics. On several occasions, his majesty the king would encourage parties that had similar ideologies to form congregations for Jordan to have a democratic system that ensures fairness and representation of the whole Jordanian society. In a functioning democracy, you would find two strong parties competing on a national level, like the Democrats and the Republicans in the U.S, the Conservatives and the Labours in Britain, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats in Germany,unfortunately that is not attainable still in Jordan. Sadly, those small parties, are happy with being dysfunctional and weak that they don’t act to gain more support from the people and gain more influence on the national level.
Anyhow, back to the debate now….
On the way in to the auditorium we were handed papers to write any questions we wished to ask the candidates, we were informed as audiences that not all of our questions would be picked for time constraints!.
The debate was moderated by two journalists from two reputable and widely read newspapers, though I wondered if they or even the candidates understood the concept of debating!.Correct me if I’m wrong, but debating as I understand it, is that two or more people who have different visions about a certain topic come to debate them before audiences to prove themselves right and the others wrong!, I was absolutely shocked that the questions were tailored in way that made it difficult to bring up differences between the candidates, despite the fact that they were very different in their political ideologies, they ended up agreeing on most of the issues . Here is a bit about each candidate that present at the “debate”…
Dr. Ruhhayel Gharaybeh, is a prominent figure in the Islamic movement, he is running as a member of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) , he’s the spokesperson of and assistant of the secretary general of his party.
Aroub Soubh, is the media person that I wrote about her and her campaign in the previous post
Samar Haj Hasan, Aroub’s direct opponent and competitor over one of the quota seats assigned for women.She is an accomplished woman and business entrepreneur, she currently runs a company that provides training and professional consultation.
Ghazi Mushrabash, a business man of Christian background competing over the Christian quota seat assigned for the capital Amman.
Theodore Al-Deer, also a business man of Christian background and competing over the Christian quota seat assigned for Amman.
Dr. Sery Nasser, a sociology professor at the University of Jordan, who even though running as an independent, seemed very nationalistic to me!
I was particularly impressed with Theodore Al Deer as he spoke eloquently about various political and social issues, even though due economic reasons, he joined the work force after finishing high school and could not pursue high education!.
The debate questions varied from those which touched upon internal issues about economy, unemployment, and education to those that addressed the foreign concerns of Jordan like the peace process in the Middle East, and the situation in Iraq and Lebanon.
As I have been following closely the presidential debates in the U.S among Democrats, and among Republicans for the primary phase, I must say the setting itself makes a lot of difference, when candidates stand before the audiences and not be seated, it shows readiness and preparedness from the candidate’s side to engage in the debate and respond to the audiences’ questions. the questions are tailored to touch specifically and not generally upon what concerns the American citizen, like the war on Iraq and the status of troops there, health care, education, and indeed immigration, you see candidates differentiating themselves from their opponents by laying out concrete agendas that tackle these issues and provide solutions, something was lacking in the “debate” I attended and is also lacking in most of the candidates’ agendas.
One surprising factor at the “debate”, was when one of the moderators indirectly asked Samar Haj Hasan about the coverage her husband’s publishing house (JO publishing) provided for her campaign, which was a controversial issue by itself…
In its November edition, JO magazine made what seemed as interesting coverage of women candidates, their campaigns, and their chances of winning.., a good friend of mine was involved in preparing that coverage, and as it was intended to equally present the women candidates and their agendas, the magazine’s owner (Samar’s husband) decided he wanted his wife to go solo on the cover and to give her a better image than the other candidates, something that was upsetting to the other women candidates particularly Aroub, who tried to bring it at the “debate”, but was shut down by the moderators in a very inappropriate and rather rudemanner !!.
The “debate” concluded without any of the candidates providing concrete solutions to the problems they were presented with nor being challenged with their agendas, except for one question that came from an audience and directed to the Islamic candidate (Dr. Gharaybeh) about his party’s stand from non-Muslims taking up leadership positions in Muslim predominant countries like Jordan, he responded well enough I must say, explaining that his party saw nothing wrong in non-Muslims taking up leadership position as citizens in the country.
The following day, Aroub invited me to attend an election event at Albalad theatre , in which she met constituents and explained her agenda to them, and engaged with them in a question and answer session , people who knew and worked with Aroub were present to give their opinions about her and they chose to support her. I invited some of my friends from the U.S- who currently live here in Jordan- to the event, though little did they understand!!, as their Arabic is slowly progressing , and most people spoke in Jordanian colloquial Arabic!.
I have nothing really to share from that event except for some pictures…
I will dedicate the next post to talking about the results of the elections, which will take place tomorrow, so I hope the there will be something pleasant and interesting to write about!
Join the Conversation
I would strongly contradict your definition of “functioning democracy”! The more or less two party system we see in Germany or GB, or even worse the one in the USA, is no functioning democracy.
In Germany, we speak of “people’s parties” (Christian Democrats, Social Democrats) and “civil rights” or “interest” parties (Greens, Liberals…). The problem is, that with just two strong parties the people do not have any real chance to vote for change, because it will always win one of those two parties which have very close positions – mostly the conservatives, as in Germany and the USA.
Democracy to me means, that people can decide who shall be leading the country. With just two strong parties – or, as in the US, not even a real chance for any other party – people don’t. They just vote those in power or their one, not real different, opponents. That is not democracy!
If Jordan has only one discernible party, that might indeed be a defect. At least it is if the impression I’m getting, that these “unaffiliated” candidates fail to differentiate themselves, is correct. People should be able to predict with some certainty how the people they vote for are going to deal with various issues, that is a prerequisite for a functioning democracy, which is about people controlling policy, not just the makeup of parliament.