‘Cause for optimism’

My wife, eldest son and I headed to the polls on Tuesday to cast our ballot for the 18th Parliament.

We drove to where the polling station was with excitement, and with some anxiety.

Excitement because, like many Jordanians, we feel grateful that the country continues to hold strongly together despite the daunting challenges, both internal and external, and that it has, for decades, been forging steadily in the direction of viable democracy.

Anxiety because of the fear of potential complications in the voting process and possible bureaucratic hurdles and delays.

To our pleasant surprise, everything went easier than expected. Upon arrival, we were guided to the rooms where the ballot boxes were, and I spent no more than three minutes from the time I entered to the time I cast the ballot, dipped my finger in ink, collected my ID and left.

When I met with my family members outside, we all had the same positive experience and good feeling.

In the evening, we talked to several friends, and they all seemed to have had the same experience.

Around 9pm we went to the Regency Hotel, where Rasid was holding a press conference on the proceedings of the day, and where we met several national and international observers who had been to many polling stations in the country, and they all told the same story: a smooth process and a professional handling of voters.

Some international observers deemed the process neat, smooth and efficient, like the best elections they witnessed in their countries, with some asserting that it was even better.

Of course, not all experiences we heard or read about were as pleasant as ours. 

During the Rasid conference, a number of irregularities and messy situations were reported. We also heard of some chaos and even attacks on some polling stations.

The second day, we heard and read about more irregularities and more problems in some districts.

Overall, however, the following conclusions can be safely drawn.

First, the irregularities and chaotic incidents were limited, isolated cases. More importantly, they were reported accurately and reliably both by governmental and non-governmental spokespersons.

The commendable thing here is that the Independent Election Commission seems to have put in place a good mechanism for voting and for dealing with irregularities as well.

This is significant. What distinguishes professional processes from unprofessional ones is not only the details of the process itself, but those of handling violations of the process.

Second, in the vast majority of polling stations, the process was efficient, orderly and professional. This means a lot.

What ultimately counts, of course, is the performance of parliamentarians.

For years, Jordanians have been unhappy with the overall performance of their MPs, despite their recognition of some individual efforts. 

We hope that this time parliamentarians will prove to be more successful and more effective than the ones that came before them.

The initial announced results seem to signify the advent of a more interesting, vibrant Parliament than many of the ones we have seen thus far, despite the loss of several heavy weight MPs.

But this remains to be seen

What is clear so far, however, is that the electoral process itself, which was problematic and somewhat suspect before, seems to have been radically improved and made more transparent and reliable.

This is crucial for, while — in principle — there can be bad parliamentary performance under a good process, there can never be any good performance under a bad process.

For this only, there is cause for optimism and some celebration.