Upcoming elections will be test for political parties, IEC chief says

Amman: Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) Musa Maaytah, said that the upcoming elections will be the first test for political parties in the Kingdom following the modernization of the political work system. This is an opportunity for the citizen to learn about the effectiveness of the party he joined based on the amount of votes he casts in favor of it, Maaytah said Saturday in a lecture at the Greater Amman Municipality's Department of Cultural Facilities and Programs. In the lecture, which covered challenges and hopes in upcoming parliamentary elections, Maaytah said that the main role of the parties is to contribute and participate in the elections and not to launch slogans and propaganda statements, and that the goal of these laws is to move from individual to collective work under the parliamentary dome, and this can only be achieved with the participation of political parties. He added that the new election law has been constitutionally fortified, as i ts amendment needs the votes of two-thirds of the members of the Lower House of Parliament, which is approximately 89 votes from the total number of members, because they are important laws with sovereignty and need consensus from all components of society, and we hope that it has a positive role, stressing the IEC's commitment to laws and regulations, preserving them and preventing any violation of them. He pointed out that the IEC has carried out all procedures completely, and announced the election schedule officially, and all information is available on the IEC's website, indicating that today the preliminary schedules, objections against third parties and personal objections have been finalized, and during this week the appeal regulations will be submitted to the judiciary, after which the final electoral schedules will be presented. He pointed out that voters were enabled to change the polling station in the same district electronically, in addition to that a Christian and Circassian can change his di strict electronically from a district in which there is no Christian or Circassian seat to another district in which there is a Christian or Circassian seat. Maaytah said that the number of voters before the announcement of the lists amounted to about 5.1 million voters, where the percentage of females reached 52 percent, and the number of polling station changers reached about 16,800 voters, and the number of main committees in the elections reached 19 committees, in addition to the general constituency, indicating that they were selected objectively after conducting tests and interviews within certain principles and criteria, and the number of polling staions reached about 1600 centers and the number of workers is about 40 thousand, and a quality officer position was introduced and his task is to detect errors in counting, collection and auditing. He added that during the past three weeks, the center received nearly 5,000 inquiry calls and nearly 520,000 hits on the website to view the electoral polling s ations Source: Jordan News Agency