26 political parties rectified legal status — Election Commission

AMMAN — The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Sunday announced that 26 political parties have rectified their legal status, IEC Spokesperson Mohammad Rawashdeh said.

The IEC official told The Jordan Times that 19 political parties “did not meet the requirements to rectify their legal status”.

Meanwhile, one political party met the requirement and was registered to run for the elections, according to Rawashdeh.

“There are also five political parties that are working to secure the necessary requirements to register themselves officially,” Rawashdeh said.

This could happen at any time, the IEC official added.

Rawashdeh also stated that 40.3 per cent of those registered in the political parties are women, and 38.4 per cent are youth.

IEC officials have said recently that 41 seats in the Lower House of Parliament will be designated for political parties out of the 138 allocated seats, which represents around 30 per cent of the incoming 20th Parliament.

The ratio will increase to 50 per cent of seats in the 21st Lower House of Parliament, to eventually reach 65 per cent in the 22th Parliament.

The IEC announced in March that a total of 4,918,772 citizens are eligible to vote in the upcoming Parliamentary elections.

According to the IEC’s website, 53 per cent of registered voters are women.

The IEC also stated that 110,446 citizens have not obtained national identification cards.

Amman topped the number of voters with 1,888,953, followed by Irbid at 870,939, then Zarqa at 705,725. 

In 2022, the Senate and Lower House passed amendments to the Political Parties Law, which require political parties to increase the proportion of women and youth to at least 20 per cent within three years after their foundation.

There should be no less than 1,000 founding members of political parties, and at least 10 per cent should be women and young people between 18 and 35 years old, according to the new law. 

The law also allows university students who join political parties to engage in partisan activities on campus without any infringement on their rights, as a bylaw will be issued to regulate such activities. 

It also stipulates that a founding conference shall be held by the party within a year after meeting the requirements, where no less than a third of the party’s 1,000 founders shall attend, and must represent at least six governorates.   

The Political Parties Law, along with the Elections Law, has been revisited by the Royal Committee to Modernise the Political System as part of its mandate to achieve political reform.