Early general elections were held in

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

on 23 January 2013.Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood to boycott early elections
BBC News, 13 July 2012 Voter turnout was reported to be 56.6%.Jordan election: Voting ends as Islamists allege fraud
BBC News, 23 January 2013

Electoral system

Prior to the elections a new electoral law was passed, allowing voters to cast two ballots; one for a candidate in their constituency and one for party lists elected by proportional representation at the national level. In addition, the number of seats reserved for candidates of political parties was raised from 17 to 27 out of the 150 seats in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

. Fifteen seats were reserved for women, whilst the remaining 108 seats were elected in 45 single and multi-member constituencies.Election Profile
IFES A new Independent Election Commission was also created. Around 70% of eligible voters were reported to have registered to vote. Although over two-thirds of the population lived in urban areas at the time of the election, cities were allocated less than one-third of seats in the House of Representatives.

Campaign

In July 2012, the

Muslim Brotherhood The Society of the Muslim Brothers ('' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar, Imam and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings s ...

-affiliated

Islamic Action Front The Islamic Action Front (IAF; ) is an Islamist political party in Jordan. It was the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. Founded in 1992 with 350 members, Ahmed Azaida, Ishaq Al-Farhan and Abdul Latif Arabiyat were the main f ...

announced that the party would boycott the elections, stating that the changes to the electoral law increasing the number of seats for political parties did not go far enough and that the constituency system favoured tribal candidates. Opposition parties had demanded that 50% of seats be reserved for parties rather than the 18% provided for. A total of 1,400 candidates registered to contest the elections, of which 22 were described as

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ists.Islamists to sit out Jordanian election
Washington Post, 20 January 2013

Conduct

The Islamist opposition complained that the elections had been marred by fraud, claiming that turnout had been artificially inflated during the last two hours of voting. The voting period had been extended by an hour to 20:00. The

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is a non-profit American non-governmental organization whose stated mission is to "support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability". It is ...

(NDI) reported that there had been a "marked improvement in procedures and administration", but also noted shortcomings and irregularities. The NDI also criticised unequal constituency sizes, claiming that they increased tribal cleavages.Jordanian elections show marked improvement from past polls but shortcomings remain, NDI delegation finds
NDI

Results

Aftermath

Following the elections Interim Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour was appointed to the post on a permanent basis, with King Abdullah consulting Parliament on membership of the cabinet for the first time.Jordan's King Abdullah swears in new government
BBC News, 30 March 2013 With 19 members, the new cabinet was the smallest in four decades.

References

{{Jordanian elections General elections in Jordan 2013 in Jordan

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results January 2013 in Asia