Heads of election were appointed in each municipal area with a total of 93 municipal areas, which were divided into 349 electoral constituencies. Election Follow-up Chiefs were appointed at the central office for 12 governorates in addition to 20 field officers associated with election follow-up chiefs. The field officers were senior employees of the Ministry of Municipalities and were assigned for the purpose of providing the central operations room with progress reports on the election process from the beginning of the registration of the voters until the declaration of results.

A total of 2706 candidates submitted applications for mayor and members of municipal councils. These included 361 women candidates while those who applied for nomination for the post of mayor reached 745 candidates including six women candidates. A total of 1,941 male and female candidates applied for nomination for membership of the municipal councils including 355 women candidates who will compete for the 929 municipal council seats, including 211 seats allocated for the women sector. It should be recalled that Jordan has reduced the number of municipalities in 2001 from 328 to 94 as part of the efforts of reform in a bid to tackle the financial problems of the municipalities.

The Jordanian government pointed out that the rate of female candidates was above 48 per cent and that this was unprecedented in the history of Jordan. It said that 780,000 voters only registered their names for the previous elections held in 2003 and that 33 Islamic candidates participated in this 2007 election compared to 11 candidates in 2003.

II – The legal framework of the elections:
The first municipal elections were held in 1925 in accordance with the first Municipalities Law issued on the same year after the Emirate of Trans Jordan was formed in 1921. In 1982, a new law was issued for the municipalities allowing women to participate in the process of electing the municipal councils. The last amendment to the law was introduced at the beginning of this year.

The most prominent amendments of the 2007 law were perhaps the following:
- Amending the law to define the municipality as a civil organization with financial independence simultaneously performing a services and developmental role. The amendment also reduced the age of the voter from 19 to 18 years with the aim of expanding the base of popular participation. It also gave the opportunity for no less than 150,000 young people to vote after reducing the voting age from 19 to 18.
- The law allocated 20 per cent of the seats of the municipal council for women so as to give women the opportunity to become active and effective in popular decision making. Earlier Jordanian women had no access to the membership of the municipal councils and this situation continued until 1995 when a total of 99 ladies were appointed at the municipal and village councils. In the municipal elections before the last held in 2003, five women won and 99 ladies were appointed members of the municipal councils, including one as a mayor.
- The new law allowed the members of the army and security service to exercise the right of election as a constructive measure that allows citizens to exercise their electoral right.
- The law approved the principle of the one-man, one-vote to become the mechanism of balloting. This principle violates the principle of fair elections which requires equality among citizens as far as the power of the electoral vote. Moreover, this principle precludes the formation of political blocs and election alliances among the opposition party forces, particularly the forces which have a national political platform with clear landmarks and goals. Therefore, this amendment has not and will not absolutely serve the idea of political reform, fairness, objectivity or independence.

III- The management of the elections:
The Amman Center for Human Rights Studies [ACHRS] could not monitor these elections and this applied to other human rights organizations in Jordan. None of these organizations in Jordan was allowed to exercise this monitoring role which gives the electoral process a greater amount of fairness and transparency and the guarantee of the respect of the law.

It is noteworthy that the committee supervising the elections was formed of the personnel of the Ministry of Municipalities and the Ministry of Interior. This has weakened the chances of having a neutral or independent committee serving for guaranteeing the fairness of the electoral process. The day of elections was a day of tension and turmoil. Fire was exchanged in several areas with escalating objections against the mechanism of having the military personnel participate in the elections. The fire was exchanged when these military personnel were brought in trucks to selected electoral constituencies. Moreover, the military personnel publicly announced that they were voting for specific candidates.

It was clear that protests against the government measures were not monopolized by the Islamists. Independent candidates have complained against government support of a certain candidate in some areas.

The campaign manager of one of the candidates for the office of Mayor of the Municipality of Zarqa pointed out that there was rigging and that persons cast their ballots more than once. He said: “I saw voters who cast their votes more than 30 times in favor of a specific candidate.” The reaction to this by some independent candidates was that they announced their withdrawal from running for the seats of mayor and membership of the municipalities in some areas of the capital city of Amman, and the cities of Irbid, Rusayfah, Madaba, Tafilah and Zarqa.

IV- The electoral constituencies:
Eyewitnesses said that dozens of hired buses carrying soldiers clad in their civil dress arrived in the areas where candidates of the Islamic movement were running. They queued in long queues since 7.00 hours in the morning obstructing the movement of the voters and preventing them from reaching the ballot boxes. Most of these people came to vote publicly under the pretext that they were illiterate in order to elect the candidate who is loyal to the government.

Hundreds of them were seen voting over and over again in different ballot boxes. Municipalities Minister Nadir Dhuhayrat announced that the rate of voting in all areas of the country reached 62 per cent. However, it is difficult to confirm this rate in light of the complete absence of all neutral monitoring bodies. Estimates by local observers said that the rate of participation was not above 40 per cent. It should be recalled that the Jordanian authorities have extended the period of polling in 25 municipalities, including the capital city of Amman, for two additional hours. In seven municipalities, extension of polling was made for one day for lack of QUORUM. It should also be recalled that the rate of participation did not allow the completion of the process of balloting as was scheduled because the required quorum according to the law is the participation of 50.1 per cent of the number of voters registered for elections, or half of the voters plus one.

V – The fairness of the elections:
It is evident that the government has failed in running the electoral process in the required transparency and fairness which it promised. The regrettable electoral incidents added a negative point to the performance of the government. All observers of the electoral process, whether they are citizens, journalists or media workers, were unanimous that excesses and violations were committed. These were represented in the repeated balloting, the deletion of names from the electoral lists, the voting of the illiterates, breaking of the boxes inside the halls with ballots flying in the air. This was especially true in the Municipality of Bal’ama. All these actions have confirmed that the government intervention was neither justifiable or precedent, particularly in light of the repeated claims of the concern about the consolidation of the democratic life and the affirmations that the candidates would run in absolute freedom, fairness and transparency. What really happened was an indication that the government was impatient and that it did not absorb the changes or tolerate the other view.


VI- Conclusions:
From the information available to the Amman Center for Human Rights Studies [ACHRS], we can conclude that the elections of the Jordanian municipalities for 2007 were characterized with shortcomings in transparency because local observers were not allowed to monitor the elections, including the ACHRS.

Excesses were committed in the electoral constituencies where supporters of the Islamic Movement were strongly present through the blatant government intervention in these constituencies, such as the dispatch of thousands of military personnel to vote in polling centers inside the borders of these constituencies without these military personnel being residents in these constituencies. Moreover, the participation of the political forces was poor, all the more so because the largest Jordanian party withdrew from the elections on the day of balloting.

In some polling centers, excesses and violations were recorded, such as the repeated balloting, the deletion of names from the electoral lists, the transport of military personnel to vote under the guise of being illiterates, the breaking of the ballot boxes inside the halls with the ballots flying in the air.

VII- Recommendations:
The ACHRS appreciates holding the municipal elections as an important constitutional measure aimed at consolidating the line of democracy and the participation of the citizens of this people in decision making. The ACHRS hopes that the Jordanian government would accept the following recommendations:

- Formation of a neutral and independent committee supervising the elections with the participation of the political parties.
- Allowing the civil society organizations to perform a monitoring role in the elections and not to restrict this monitoring to one team only.
- Review of the mechanism of the participation of the military and allowing them to vote on the basis of the places of their residence without having to go to the military garrisons and then to the polling centers in organized queues for voting.
- Respect of the principle of secret balloting and curbing the phenomenon of public voting.

Finally, one can say that the law on the municipal elections allows all the candidates who have evidence to appeal against the fairness of the elections and to file lawsuits in court. This gives an opportunity to appeal against the elections within 15 days from the day of the declaration of results.


Amman Center for Human Rights Studies