Political affairs ministry secretary general calls on university students to participate in upcoming Parliamentary Elections

AMMAN — Secretary-General of the Ministry of Political and Parliamentary Affairs (MoPPA) Ali Khawaldeh on Wednesday urged University students to determine their future by taking part in the upcoming Parliamentary elections.

Khawaldeh was speaking during the launch of a youth awareness programme at Jordanian universities under the theme: “Strengthening young men and women’s participation in the elections and political parties”.

The event was organised by the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) in cooperation with the UN Women and MoPPA.

The Parliamentary elections are slated to take part on September 10.

The ministry official who was speaking on behalf of Minister Haditha Khraisha stressed that the “youth will be the decisive factor in the upcoming elections”.

“We are certain that you will be the agents of change because you objectively elect candidates based on their merits and election programmes,” Khawaldeh told the students.

JNCW Secretary-General Maha Ali also urged students to contribute to the development of the election process by choosing candidates who will work for the benefit of the country.

Assistant to the UN Women representative Bushra Abu Shahout told the students during the event that “this is a historical chance for you to draw the future of Jordan”.

“You are capable and have the necessary talents and energy to actively engage in the upcoming Parliamentary elections to decide your and the country’s future,” Abu Shahout said.

The one-day event ended with an interactive theatre activity to encourage youth to be active participants in the electoral process and to be members of political parties, said founder and Director General of the National Centre for Culture and Performing Arts (NCCPA) Lina Attel.  

“The idea of the interactive play is to get students involved by providing their opinion about certain wrongful practices such as the use of black money and refraining from electing candidates based on their merits,” Attel said.

Attel told The Jordan Times that “we do not preach but rather give the students the freedom to express their opinions and come up with their own conclusions and solutions”.

“We show the negative outcome when people are not active in the electoral process and do not study the agendas of the candidates,” Attel, who is also the founder of the National Interactive Theater Troup of the NCCPA.

The Independent Elections Commission (IEC) announced last week that the final number of people who registered to run for the parliamentary elections was 1,651.

The number of local and general lists who submitted their candidacy to run for the upcoming parliamentary elections was 199.

The number of political party lists registered to run in the general constituency was 25 and included 697 individuals.

The lists included five coalitions representing 16 political parties, while the local lists registered to run for the elections were 174 and included 954 individuals.

Earlier in the month, the IEC said in a press statement the final number of eligible voters for the upcoming Parliamentary elections was 5,115,219, including 2,689,926  females, which represent 52.5 per cent of the total voters.

The statement added that the number of eligible voters who will cast their ballots for the first time was 590,794.

Meanwhile, the number of eligible voters who are under 25 years old was 1,119,832, while the number of voters who are under 35 was 2,323,478, according to the IEC statement.

On April 24, His Majesty King Abdullah ordered the holding of the elections for the House of Representatives, by the law.

In 2022, the Senate and the Lower House passed the 2022 amendments to the Political Parties Law, which require political parties to increase the percentage of women and youth to at least 20 per cent within three years after their foundation.