The Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political party representing the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, is the main winner of the elections held in the kingdom yesterday, winning 31 seats out of the 138 seats in the country’s House of Representatives – with over 500,000 votes. This is a striking achievement for Islamists, who view themselves as an opposition party, who received ten seats in the 2020 elections, and who decided in past elections to boycott the political process altogether.
The elections took place following a notable reform in the voting mechanism, which for the first time allowed voters to choose their elected officials through two notes – one for their local representatives who competed for 97 of the 138 seats, and the other for the national district comprising the remaining 41 seats. According to reports from the kingdom, 36 registered parties ran for the elections on the national level, while only two ran for the local one. The Islamic Action Front’s achievement was divided between 17 seats on the national level and 14 seats on the local one.
Additionally, 27 women were elected for parliament, 18 of which were elected due to the country’s minimum quota for women in the house of representatives. Another change in these elections was the minimum age for candidates, which was lowered from 30 in the past elections to 25 this year.
Other prominent achievements went to the national-oriented Al-Mithaq Al-Watani (‘The National Charter’) party who won 21 seats, and the left-leaning Taqaddum (‘Progress’) party who won 8 seats. The rest were distributed mainly among independent candidates or smaller parties.
Media praises Islamist achievements and kingdom’s democracy
Al-Jazeera, the mouthpiece of Muslim Brotherhood sponsor Qatar, praised the achievement of the Islamist party, stressing the party’s staunch support for Hamas, the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, since October 7th. The Qatari channel also stated that the new parliament will have to deal with what it called a “threat to deport Palestinians to Jordan.”
The voter turnout was reportedly 1.6 million out of an estimated 5.1 million voters, which symbolizes a low turnout of around 32%, despite being higher than the past 2020 elections, which saw a turnout of 29%.
On Jordanian national TV, analysts lauded the election process and the outcomes as proof that the Jordanian people stand with the Palestinian people, stressing that the elections are proof of the strong democracy in the kingdom.
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the legislative branch of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The upper house, the senate, is composed of 65 delegates, all appointed by a royal decree, like the executive branch, the Jordanian government. This grants the King absolute control of the legislative process, as any piece of legislation that passes in parliament must also be ratified by those appointed by him – and by himself as well.
Ever since their coalescing as a political party in the early 1990s, Islamists in Jordan have been at the forefront of opposition to the peace process with Israel, leading protests and marches and using their social and religious influence to preach and act against the peace accords and normalization. Despite this, they have been consistently careful to point their criticism mainly at the Jordanian government rather than at the Hashemite family, which is still considered a taboo in the kingdom.
