Elections in Jordan: The parties’ return to parliament

Elections in Jordan, like the rest of the country’s domestic politics, generally fly under the radars of the international media. Nor do they arouse much enthusiasm in the country, as is shown by the high rates of abstention at each polling. However the results of the latest parliamentary election held on 10 September 2024 were surprising.

Observers’ attention was particularly drawn to the results won by the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which took 31 seats out of 138. This was the best result that party has had since its creation, giving the Jordanian population the impression that this was a “clean” election, in other words that the results were not rigged by the powers that be. Together with the seats won by other parties, this new parliament will include 104 MPs with party affiliations, whereas previously there were only 24 (in 2016) and 13 (in 2020).

Three successive electoral reforms

Researcher Ciro Martinaz has described the official rhetoric used by the King and the government concerning the political parties as “the perpetual sound track of Jordanian politics”. And indeed, since the turn of the century, but even more so since the 2011 protest movements, King Abdullah II has been calling for a strengthening of the role of the parties in Jordanian politics. In one of his working papers, first published in 2012, the monarch explains among other things that priority should be given to the development of “nation-wide political parties (...) capable of winning a majority of the citizens’ votes.” While presenting them as an intrinsic part of the democratisation of the regime - and while failing to mention that they had been banned from 1957 to 1992 or that some were still subjected to political repression - the King emphasized the weakness of party organisations and stressed the progressive nature of this transition.

This official rhetoric was meant as a response to the demands put forth by the political opposition since the establishment in 1993 of an electoral procedure which disadvantaged political parties. In order to keep the opposition parties from winning a parliamentary majority, as it had done in 1989 and in the fifties, the old block vote was replaced by a first-past-the-post system in multi-seat constituencies (known as “one man one vote”). In other words, whereas in 1989, a person voted for as many candidates as there were seats vacant in his district, after 1993 he could cast only one vote. The idea was to get voters to use this single vote in favour of a member of their tribe or other familiars, in other words an accessible intermediary rather than a candidate chosen for his political ideology. This electoral system gradually led to the marginalisation in parliament of all political forces. In the assembly elected in 2010 party members represented only 10 % of all MPs, the vast majority thus declaring themselves independent.

A new electoral law was at the centre of the opposition’s demands during the 2011 protests. In response, the King had promised a gradual transition to a parliamentary government, in which the Prime Minister would be appointed by the majority coalition.

Three successive reforms of the electoral system took place between 2013 and 2022. In 2013, the system reserved 27 seats (out 150) to candidates elected in a nation-wide constituency. But the election was boycotted by several parties, like the IAF and several left-wing formations. Out of the 150 seats, 33 (22 %) went to the candidates of political parties. The 2016 reform finally put an end to the “one man one vote” system which it replaced with a system of proportional representation with open lists, elected from local districts. In the election held a few months later, 24 candidates (18.4 %) presented by a political party each obtained one seat of the 150. The IAF won 10 seats, in addition to the five won by its allies. The results of the November 2020 election were even more disappointing. In fact, only 12 candidates belonging to political parties were elected (9.2 %): ten seats were won by the IAF and the Islamic Centre Party.

At the beginning of 2022, a third electoral reform was adopted by Parliament. The electoral system became a hybrid one: 97 seats represented 18 local districts in which candidates faced off in a proportional election with open lists, and 41 seats were contested via a proportional system with closed lists in a single nation-wide constituency. Contrary to the previous systems, these lists are all party-sponsored. The number of seats reserved for political parties is planned to increase with each new election, from 41 to 69 and then to 90 seats. Repeating a watchword often heard for more than 10 years, the chairman of the Law Commission, Abdel Mon‘em Al-Aoudat, had stated that this law “[was going] to enable Jordan to give the parties back an effective role in the country’s political life.”

The birth of new organisations

So where does that leave us today? Quite apart from the results, the new electoral law greatly increased the parties’ visibility during the campaign. Previously, many candidates apparently admitted to hiding their party affiliations from voters. Some preferred not to display the name and logo of their party on their campaign posters for fear that it would make them lose votes.

The IAF, however, was an exception. Its candidates often felt on the contrary that the name of their party, well-known to voters, helped them reach a larger audience.

While this habit of hiding one’s party label persisted into the 2024 elections, especially with candidates nominated at the local level, the parties, obliged as they were to make themselves known nationally in order to get votes for their lists competing at that level, took to campaigning again openly. Besides the posters pasted up pretty much everywhere in the cities, candidates and party activists were in the streets handing out leaflets explaining their party’s program or just establishing the names of their candidates. The parties also held rallies in the various districts across the country. For the many parties created since the new electoral law was passed, like Al-Mithaq, Al-Watani, Erada or Azum, all unknown to the general public a few months ago, it was simply a matter of making a name for themselves.

The breakthrough of the Islamic Action Front

However the tactics adopted by these various parties did not really pay off. Indeed the number of seats won by the new parties remained limited. Al-Mithaq and Erada, for example, won only four and three seats respectively out of the 41 reserved for party organisations. These parties, both led by former ministers, are often described as creations of the economic and political elites, backed by the powers that be. The seats which they won at the local level, largely because their candidates were well-known in their districts, enabled them to compensate for that failure. Al-Mithaq now has 21 MPs, as against 19 for Erada.

A disappointment was also in store for the various left-wing parties that took part in the election, such as the Communist party, the Popular Unity Party, and the Civil Democratic Party. None won seats at the national level, demonstrating once again their inability to attract voters. Before the campaign began, these parties had tried to form a coalition, but their negotiations broke down when it came to determining the order of candidates on the list.

By contrast, the 10 September 2024 election was a big success for the IAF, which won 17 of the 41 seats reserved for party organisations. With the 12 seats obtained at the local district level, it will have 31 MPs in the new parliament (8 of whom are women). By garnering nearly half a million votes for its national list, the party confirmed its ability to mobilise well beyond its habitual electoral strongholds, the urban districts of Amman and Zarqa. Nobody expected such a clear-cut victory - party members themselves admit they were the first to be surprised. And this election has shown the extent to which the IAF remains the only party really known to the electorate, capable of attracting voters without having to depend on the familiarity of its nominated candidates.

These results may also be read as the consequence of a transformation begun by the party some years ago in order to reach a broader audience. In 2016, for example, the slogan Islam is the solution was dropped in favour of Rebirth for the homeland, dignity for its citizens. And for the 2016 and 2020 elections, the party had also formed the National Coalition for Reform (Al-tahalouf Al-watani li-l-islah), with a number of independent candidates, including some Christians.

The Palestinian Issue

Today the party is appreciated by many voters because it is perceived as including honourable politicians, unlike other elected officials, who are often portrayed as corrupt. Some will have also cast their votes for the party in view of its opposition to the political oppression practised by the Jordanian authorities, such as the new law on cyber-criminality (2023)¹, generally contested throughout the country. The party also chose to nominate Nasser al-Nahasreh for president of the teachers’ union which was shut down in 2020 and whose members were severely repressed. The IAF’s results must also be interpreted in the light of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza strip.

The Palestinian cause and the issue of Jordan’s relations with Israel were among the main issues preoccupying the party’s MPs during the previous legislature. They had been resolute opponents of the gas agreement between the two countries. After the 7 October attack, the Muslim Brotherhood took part in the organisation of various actions and demonstrations in support of the Palestinians, alongside other parties and activists united in the National Resistance Support Forum (Al-moultaqa Al-wataniya li-da‘m Al-muqawama). And finally, Palestine and the Gaza events were the central focus of their electoral campaign. During their many rallies, candidates and party members never failed to proclaim their support for the Palestinians’ resistance and denounce the Kingdom’s relations with Israel, whose persistence they attribute to Jordan’s dependence on the United States.

Their support for Maher Al-Jazi, the truck-driver shot to death on the border with Israel after having killed three Israeli soldiers a few days before the election, enhanced their reputation as fervent champions of the Palestinian cause.

The power structure’s safeguards

The new parliament is made up of 104 MPs affiliated with 10 political parties out of an overall 135, i.e. 76 % of the total. By way of comparison, only 46 % of the MPs elected in 1989 belonged to a party as against 6.2 % in 1997. As a result, the various parties are now going to have to form parliamentary groups, hitherto composed mostly of independent MPs. The forthcoming alliances are still unclear. Some may be based on programmatic or ideological platforms. It will also be interesting to see whether the newly created parties will manage to stand the test of time, to formalize the relations between MPs and party leaders and establish voting discipline. If so, the processes of negotiation and coalition when it comes to voting for or against a bill will tend to be quite different from what they were in previous legislatures, when MPs were generally obliged to persuade their colleagues one by one if they hoped to have this or that text adopted or rejected.

The arrival in Parliament of 31 IAF MPs will also have a considerable effect on the life of that body. While the last few years have shown that Parliament was systematically by-passed when it came to decisions concerning foreign policy and Jordan’s relations with other countries (with Israel in particular), we may expect the MPs to be especially articulate on the Palestinian question and on the issue of political repression, especially during sessions of verbal questions to the government. Whereas until now, only ten signatures were needed for a vote of no confidence to be presented to the Assembly, now 25 % of the MPs are necessary - and today the IAF’s MPs represent only 22.5 %. It should also be pointed out that once again the MPs were not consulted, contrary to what the King has been promising since 2011, on the choice of a Prime Minister after the resignation of Bisher Khasawneh a few days after the election, as the Constitution requires.

In spite of the frequent use of political repression against activists and political adversaries, the results of this last election reveal a political landscape which is relatively competitive, something which has again become rather rare across the Arab world. Nonetheless, the poor voter turnout (32 %) shows that Jordanians still tend to distrust the parliamentary institutions and the political reforms launched by the authorities. The next four years will tell whether the newly elected MPs will manage to restore some degree of confidence.

This article is published in partnership with the MENA program of the independent research center Noria Research