Jordanian parliamentary vote will be unfair, critics contend

AMMAN, JORDAN — The vividly colored election posters draped on streetlights signal election season in Jordan.

"Yes to duty-free and tax-free food and pharmaceuticals," says the poster of one candidate running in Tuesday's parliamentary elections.

"Supporting sport clubs is a national duty," says an ad for another.

But to critics and many observers, vibrant campaign banners conceal a dismal reality: The parliamentary contest will be a questionable exercise in democracy.

"It's sad," Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political analyst, said this month. "A lot of people don't register to vote because they feel deep inside it's a waste of time."

More than 900 candidates, about 200 of them women, are running for seats in the 110-seat Chamber of Deputies, which has the authority to propose laws.

On Thursday, King Abdullah II said he "was keen on having free and fair elections that would enable citizens to exercise their constitutional right in selecting those most capable of representing and serving them," according to the website of the Jordanian Foreign Ministry.

"These elections should reflect our vision to bolster democracy and produce a parliament capable of dealing with all challenges in the forthcoming stage," he said, according to a statement distributed by his royal court.

Critics say the government put in place restrictions to guarantee an outcome favorable to the king and his supporters.

The country's July elections for municipal government councils provided what critics say was a blueprint for an election with just enough of the ornaments of democracy to satisfy Jordan's Western allies, but enough substantive roadblocks to prevent forces opposed to the monarchy from gaining power.

Jordan's electoral districts are mapped to give pro-government tribal areas in the countryside a far greater proportion of seats than those in urban enclaves such as Amman and Zarqa, where both Islamic and secular government opposition candidates draw support.

During the municipal elections, critics contend that the committee in charge of registering candidates was stacked with government loyalists who discriminated against opposition candidates.

"If you're not sanctioned by intelligence, you're not allowed to run," Kamhawi said. "The election laws have been manipulated so that the government loyalists always have a comfortable majority."

Authorities also dropped voters of questionable political sympathies from registration lists, critics said.