‘No reason’ to delay elections — IEC chief

Fuente: 
Jordan Times
Fecha de publicación: 
08 Ago 2016

AMMAN — President of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) Khaled Kalaldeh on Monday accused supporters of the former one-person, one-vote electoral system to be behind rumours targeting the September 20 parliamentary elections.  

The elections must go ahead next month as the Constitution demands that elections be held within four months of the dissolution of the Lower House, a top official said on Monday.

His Majesty King Abdullah dissolved Parliament by decree on May 29, so elections must be held by the end of September.

“If the Chamber of Deputies is dissolved, a general election shall be held, and the new Chamber shall convene in an extraordinary session not later than four months from the date of dissolution,” Article 73 of the Constitution states. 

If the elections do not take place as scheduled, the dissolved Parliament should reconvene, according to the Constitution.

Postponing the elections would require a Royal decree, noted Kalaldeh, who dismissed recent reports suggesting that the vote would be delayed. 

In a phone interview with The Jordan Times, Kalaldeh stressed that there was no reason to delay the vote. 

For the IEC chief, those who spread such “rumours” are supporters of the former one-person, one-vote electoral system who do not want the polls to be conducted under the new system. 

Candidates and political parties have announced that they will run in the elections, which Kalaldeh said was another reason to proceed on schedule. 

The new electoral system is based on an at-large voting system, in which candidates can run for parliamentary elections on one large multimember ticket at the level of governorate.

The law divides the Kingdom into 23 electoral districts, with one for each governorate, while the capital has five districts, Irbid four and Zarqa two. 

Each of the three badia districts (northern, central and southern) is considered a governorate for the purposes of the law, a key component of the country’s political reform process.

The law allocates 115 seats to the constituencies and 15 seats to a women’s quota, with one seat for each governorate and one seat for each of the three badia districts.

Responding to criticism that the new law is “ambiguous”, Kalaldeh insisted that it is just the opposite: “Simple to understand and to implement”. 

All a voter must do is choose a list to vote for, he explained. 

The one-vote system was applied from the 1993 to the 2010 polls, before a new law was adopted for the 2013 elections, to be discarded two years later. 

http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/no-reason%E2%80%99-delay-elections...