6.4% of tickets running for Parliament are party-based — study

AMMAN — The Civil Coalition for Monitoring Elections and the Performance of Elected Councils (Rased) has said that 6.4 per cent of the tickets running for the September 20 parliamentary elections are party-based, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Saturday.

Using "quantitative research methods", Rased targeted 1,100 of the candidates in the study, either through direct phone calls or through data that observers collected on the candidates from social media websites or CVs found online, according to Petra.

According to the study, 43.5 per cent of the tickets rely on tribal coalitions, while a further 11 per cent employ a mixture of tribal and partisan affiliations.

The remaining 39.1 per cent of the approved lists are composed of independent candidates, Petra reported.

Another breakdown of candidates focused on their occupational backgrounds.

The study showed that 24.4 per cent of parliamentary hopefuls are businesspeople, 13 per cent are retired servicemen and 12.3 are former public-sector employees, according to an infographic published on Rased's Facebook page.

Under the Elections Law, public and military servants are required to resign before applying for parliamentary candidacy.

The same ratio for candidates is shared by lawyers and academics, at 9.6 per cent each, while 6.9 per cent accounted for engineers and 5.2 per cent are doctors. 

Some 3.1 per cent are media professionals and the remainder 15.9 per cent practise other vocations, according to Rased figures.

Would-be members of Parliament were further classified into groups by Rased based on their education. 

Around 48.5 per cent of the candidates are bachelor’s degree holders, 15.9 per cent are PhD holders, 13.1 per cent have finished high school, 8.7 per cent have obtained a master’s degree, 8 per cent are holders of higher diplomas, and the remaining 5.8 per cent have not finished high school, Petra reported.

Rased also sorted candidates into two categories, as 73.7 per cent running for the first time and 26.3 ran two or more times prior to this year’s elections.

About 1,272 candidates are running on 227 tickets for the 18th Lower House polls.