'Nearly half of MPs’ demands during recent discussions were service-oriented'

AMMAN — Lower House members, during the five-day period allocated to discussing the government’s policy statement, presented 1,150 demands, around half of which were service-oriented, the Civil Coalition for Monitoring Elections and the Performance of Elected Councils (Rased) said on Monday.

The Rased report included an analysis of the type of demands, which showed that 48 per cent were national, 46 per cent were related to local services and 6 per cent were related to foreign policy, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

First-time deputies’ local service-oriented demands constituted 54 per cent of their remarks, while national demands made up 45 per cent and only 1 per cent went to foreign policy.

Partisan lawmakers’ national demands constituted 58 per cent, compared to 40 per cent for local service demands.

As for granting the vote of confidence to the government, the report showed that all deputies of Irbid’s 1st and 2nd districts, the Northern Badia, Ajloun and Maan voted in favour of the government.

The government of Prime Minister Hani Mulki on Thursday won the House’s vote of confidence with a majority of 84 out of the 128 deputies present. A total of 40 deputies voted “nay”, while four MPs abstained and two were absent.

In terms of unanimity in voting for confidence among deputies who ran for parliamentary elections on the same list, Rased said that consensus was lacking in eight lists out of 24 that produced more than one lawmaker, Petra added.

The report revealed that the Reform bloc showed 100 per cent harmony among its members, who all voted “nay”, while the Justice bloc came second in unanimity, with 86 per cent of its members granting their votes for the government.

Mulki’s government needed 66 votes in its favour to win the House’s confidence.