I have just came back from voting for the 15th parliament. I spent a lot of time and mental energy before I decided to actually vote just to be positive and try to select the best available candidiate in my district.
The ideal situation for any voting system is to vote for a programme and not a person. The programme should be based on a multi-party system where a collection of candidates will promote a certain programme and try to implement it in the Parliament in peacuful constitutional democratic ways. As there is no social democratic party in Jordan I was not able to find any programme that suits my political convictions.
The second level is to vote for persons. Again I was restricted with the fact that I did not have any candidate that meets my 4 combined criteria of lack of corruption, political awareness and progressive thinking as well as unshaken loyalty to the country, not necessarily the governemnt. I know taht plenty of candidates may posses three out of four but not all together. I made a simple exercise to see how many candidates among the 885 who have registered will be OK for me to vote for and I found only 8. Here they are:
Amman 3rd district: Rehayyel Gharaibeh (IAF): an enlightened Islamist and the main figure in the struggle to maintain the civil and peaceful identity of the IAF against the radicals.
Amman 5th district: Sameeh Bino: A clean and honest stateman who has served in the military and intelligence defending the stability of the country and not spying on people. He was the first head of the anti-corruption unit at GID and was successful.
Madaba: Mustapha Hamarneh: A liberal academic intellectual with a clear vision about political reform. My personal favourite.
Balqa: Abdul-Lateef Arabiyat: A real top figure in Jordanian politics. Honest, honorable and enlightened. I wish all the IAF were like him.
Balqa: Dr Hazim Al Nasser: a real professional and hard worker. One of the few honest former ministers who have served the country well and was removed from the governemnt for trying to be fair and defend Jordan's resources against corruption.
Irbid: Dr Husni Al Sheyyab: A veterane former MP and a true national politician who has been always clean and progressive.
Badia: Any women candidate in the three Badia districts. The Jordanian women of Badia have always been active in socio-economic development but marginalised by men. A women bedouin in Parliament will be a real progress.
Ma'an: Again a women parliamentarian in Ma'an will be a much needed progress in this highly conservative governorate further infected by Islamic extermism.
Now, as I am not allowed to vote for any of those I turned my eye to the 6th doistrict and turned on the third level of affiliation which is the Circassian lineage. As a Jordanian citizen of Circassian origins I am interested in having a candidate that is good to represent me as a Circassian. I have 6 choices, two of them are not serious and they are eliminated. One of the remaining four has served for more than 10 years without standing strongly against some decisions impacting the people (at least circassians) like the elimination of the Circassian/ Chechen seat in Amman 3rd district. The second has never been known to be interested in politics and public issues and is a little bit enclosed in the reduced Circassian community and not open to the outside. The third candidate is a good educator and a nice person but again she is more linked to the internal circassian community rather than being open to the outside. The fourth one has an economic career that makes him open with the whole community and has the potential of being a promising parliamentarian with fresh ideas. Maybe not politically strong but still has the potential to learn more and get engaged. I decided to vote for the fourth.
I am not very convinced with this whole scenario but unfortunately I was driven to the point where I collect the candidate with the following three features:
1- Represents my lineage.
2- Open to the Jordanian community.
3-Young with potential.
Only time will tell if I were right.
said:
from Jordan
You called on people to vote for a woman candidate. Did you follow your own advice?