Mansour Murad better than all the Jordanian Left in the elections - Jordan Watch

An update and analysis of development and reform challenges in Jordan from a social democratic perspective.

Mansour Murad better than all the Jordanian Left in the elections

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Although the main focus was on the surprise defeat of the IAF in the Jordanian elections, little has been written about the humilation of the Jordanian left. We all know that the IAF is the biggest party with all the resources and mobilization tools but the Jordanian left should be able to show a justification for the numerous statements and number of parties it has. Unfortunately it was a humilating result.

The only leftist party that had a list of candidiates (although not reflected in their slogans) was the "The national democratic stream" made up of 3 political parties (Communist, Jordanian Popular democratic party-linked to the popular front to liberate Palestine- and the Progressive democratic party -the Syrian branch of Al ba'th-. The stream had 7 candidiates and they were all doomed with a massive blow. The two candidiates in Amman 1st and 5th did not manage 1500 votes between them. The others in governorates did not do better. The best candidate was Ahmad Elias on the Circassian/ Chechen seat in Zarqq with 1100 votes. However, it was ironic that one of his rivals in the same district, the veteran leftist Mansour Murad managed to get 5085 votes, only 500 less than the millionaire Mirza Boulad who won after a high-spending campaign. Had the votes of Ahmad Elias been diverted to Mansour Murad a remarkable victory could have been acheived for the leftists against the capitalists in Zarqa.

I see it as a positive and refreshing fact that one candidate like Mansour is still able to mobilize the voters and get 5085 votes which put him as 3rd in overall Zarqa ranking. The leftists in Jordan still need popular figures that can mobilize voters and Mansour is a real asset.

Now, in case you still consider Bassam Haddadin as a leftist he managed to keep his eternal seat with 1300 votes in Zarqa to be the only "representative" of the Jordanian left in the Parliament.

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(4) comments

On November, 25, 2007 2:39 PM , Tulip
from Jordan said:

Actually, the Jordanian left dealt with this elections in a very clear attitude. they were smart in not picking this elections as a deterministic battle for their lack of power or popularity; they did not (can not) boycott the elections, yet they were not that much involved. that goes the same for the leftist voter.

at the same time; majority of the leftist youth took a remarkable stand and started the laa2 campaign against the government economical policies. even their visits to the candidates debates, areas, quarters and voting locations aimed to communicate with potential winners (before elections) and their supporting crowd about the campaign .. etc and they managed to achieve few steps, that are more political in it is concept and approach more than any possible elections involvement

On November, 25, 2007 6:18 PM , Abed said:

how can you describe a rigged election in terms of a defeat for any party?

this bogus election is a defeat for all Jordanians and for Jordanian democracy and for Jordanian political development and for arab progress and for arab freedoms.

this is not a defeat for this or that candidate. or this or that party. this is a deliberate case of disenfranchisement.

so please, stop drawing lessons out of this election as if it were a valid election.

On November, 25, 2007 6:34 PM , Khalaf
from Jordan said:

Batir: I would agree with Tulip that the left didn't really treat this election seriously. I would add that the left doesn't treat the Jordanian public seriously. I have written about this more than once. A political party doesn't simply appear just before elections preparing to run. The only time you hear about leftists is when they are applauding Bashar Assad's insults to Jordan, writing useless manifestos in support of Zerqawi lovers or organizing anti-normalization rallies that nobody attends. Once the left takes Jordanians seriously, they can expect to be taken seriously.

On November, 26, 2007 7:52 AM , masalha1
from Jordan said:

Tulip,
I think the Jordanian people didn't take the leftist seriously also, the passed records of the leftist in previouse parliaments, their actions and slogans on the ground indicates that they so deeply involved ( to their ears ) with regional issues, and Jordan is not even on their radar screen, remind me of one stand the leftist took against the many deteriorating living conditions of the Jordanian people? I stand to be corrected but I don't know any.
Khalaf,
I agree with you, but I can say that the IAF is not any better they tend to have the same stand with different Ideology and they're more concerned with Afganistan than Jordan.
The bottom line is unless we have political parties that have presence at all times and tackles issues like the ever deteriorating educational system, cost of living, inflation, unemployment, corruption, government spending, taxes ....etc., unless we have parties wiiling to stand by the people and their issues, this vicious circle will continue for ever.

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