‘Election commission announces final tally of candidates today’

AMMAN — The final number of candidates running in the upcoming parliamentary elections will be announced on Wednesday evening, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) said on Tuesday.

Jihad Momani, the IEC spokesperson, said four objections to candidates were before the court, and verdicts on their eligibility to stand were expected on Wednesday.  

Two of these cases are related to “political money”, the third concerns alleged defamation and the fourth relates to alleged violations of election campaign regulations, Momani told The Jordan Times.

So far, 1,264 candidates are standing for elections on September 20 after six candidates withdrew from the race and one died. 

The Elections Law allows candidates to withdraw from the race until 10 days before the elections.

When candidacy registration closed in mid-August, the IEC announced that 1,293 candidates had applied to stand for election on 230 lists. 

Amman saw the largest number of lists across the Kingdom, according to the IEC, followed by Irbid with 37 tickets representing 213 candidates.

The IEC said the number of contending lists was larger than expected.

The Kingdom is divided into 23 electoral districts, with five for Amman, four for Irbid and two for Zarqa.

The other governorates are each represented as an electoral district, including the three badia constituencies.

The 2015 Elections Law reduced the Lower House seats from 150 to 130, designating 15 seats for the women’s quota.