5,000 individuals chosen to monitor upcoming local elections — IEC

AMMAN — The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Sunday said that some 5,000 individuals were chosen to monitor the governorate and municipal elections slated to take place on Tuesday.

“Of the 5,000 people, including 100 international persons, will be monitoring the elections,” IEC member Jihad Momani said in a TV interview.

Over 4,640 candidates, including 846 women, are slated to run for the elections.  

The elections are slated to take place on March 22 whereby the registered candidates will compete for a total of 1,135 seats.

Momani added that the registration and campaign race witnessed 777 violations that “were resolved by IEC officials”.

Some 4,602,135 people, including 2,437,340 women, are eligible to vote in the upcoming elections.

There will be 1,845 polling stations that will, for the time being, contain 6,907 ballot boxes. The number could decrease or increase based on future needs.  

Meanwhile, Solidarity Is Global Institute (SIGI) said the percentage of eligible female voters was 52.7 per cent.

The women’s group said in a statement that was released to the press that “SIGI will be monitoring the elections to ensure that that the elections will be fair and transparent”. 

“SIGI wants to guarantee that women will be able to vote without any pressure to ensure that everyone will be able to vote freely and independently,” the SIGI statement said.

The IEC announced recently that 13.3 million ballot papers were printed with security marks for the upcoming elections with three colours: One for the city council presidency seat, one for the city council membership seat and one for the governorate seat.

The Cabinet has decided to hold governorate and municipal council elections in November. 

The Cabinet also approved the Amman Municipal Council Election Law and electoral appeals for 2021.