JTA elections see ‘relatively high nationwide turnout’ at nearly 78%

AMMAN — The Jordanian Teachers Association’s (JTA) central committee elections on Tuesday “flowed smoothly”, as officials put it, citing relatively high turnouts in most of Jordan’s governorates.

The association’s central committee is comprised of 164 members, Secretary General of the Ministry of Education and Chairman of the JTA Higher Elections Committee Sami Salaytah told The Jordan Times.

They are elected by more than 80,000 registered teachers across the Kingdom to represent a sector that comprises the bulk of Jordan’s public-sector employees.

Teachers, registered and unregistered, comprise some 55 per cent of the Kingdom’s entire government’s workforce, according to JTA Spokesperson Ahmad Hajaya.

“No violations or breaches were reported,” Salaytah confirmed, three hours before the ballot polls closed.

“Everything is going as planned,” he said.

When the ballots centres officially closed, at 5pm, the JTA reported that the highest turnouts were cited in the governorates, particularly in Ajloun, Tafileh, Jerash and Karak, all of which had a voter turnouts exceeding 85 per cent.

The lowest turnouts, on the other hand, were in Amman, Zarqa and Irbid, ranging between 60 and 70 per cent.

Of all the events and occasions on the teachers’ calendars, “these elections are of the utmost importance to the sector, if not the single most important JTA event of all”.

More than 80 per cent of the government’s estimated 110,000 public school teachers are registered with the JTA.

Nationwide, the average turnout stood at around 78 per cent, Hajaya said, “which speaks volumes about the teachers’ engagement levels when it comes to the making and shaping of their association and sector”.

“They invested so much time and effort in their association, which is also reflective of the confidence teachers have in the JTA and is a testimony to its effectiveness,” he added.

Minister of Education Walid Maani announced a countrywide holiday on Tuesday to give teachers a chance to cast their votes, according to a statement by the ministry.

This year, the number of committee seats was reduced from the 316 seats in previous years, Salaytah noted.

He further explained that the current elections were held in accordance to the association’s 2018 voting law, which allows only members who have no unpaid obligations to vote.

“Overall, the number of full JTA members has declined. Therefore, it was deemed appropriate to reduce the number of committee seats, so that it would be representative of the members who are eligible to vote,” the official added.

The new distribution grants 10 seats for each of the 12 governorates, one seat for each one of the education ministry’s 43 directorates and one seat for every directorate whose registered members of the JTA exceed 5,000, which in this case was Amman’s Marka directorate, a source with the Education Ministry told The Jordan Times.

A week ago, the association announced the names of uncontested winners in the committee elections.

Five uncontested individual candidates have made it to the committee from Amman, Mafraq, Maan and Aqaba, in addition to the “Aqaba List” of 10, a previous statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Because Aqaba’s governorate and directorate seats were filled ahead of the elections, Aqaba was the only governorate that did not cast its votes on Tuesday.

The ballots were sorted in the 308 different stations across Jordan and the winners were announced on Tuesday night.