Cabinet ready with new ‘less restrictive’ parties law

AMMAN — The Cabinet on Wednesday endorsed a draft political parties law that eases restrictions on the formation of parties entailed in the existing legislation.  

A key component of the political reform process, the new version of the law reduces the required number of founding members from 500 people to 150, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

It also drops the condition that founders have to be at least from seven governorates and cancels quotas for the youth and women, while the age requirement for joining political parties is 18, instead of 21 in the law in effect.

The draft law also allows parties to accept donations and grants from Jordanians that do not exceed JD50,000, provided that transparency is ensured.  

The draft law places political parties’ affairs under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Political and Parliamentary Affairs. Currently, the file is handled by the Justice Ministry, which replaced the Interior Ministry, which had historically been charged with the task. 

Under the proposed law, a ministerial committee would be formed, headed by the ministry’s secretary general, to look into applications filed by Jordanians to set up new parties.