Islamists score big in Jordanian election held in shadow of Gaza war
Islamic Action Front, an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood that wants to end peace treaty with Israel, wins 31 of 138 seats in parliament
AMMAN — Jordan’s leading Islamist opposition party has won 31 out of 138 seats in the kingdom’s parliament, tripling its representation in legislative elections dominated by frustration over Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
The Islamic Action Front (IAF), a political offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, came ahead of other parties and factions in the legislature after Tuesday’s vote, but was far from clinching a majority, according to official election results released on Wednesday.
The result is a historic win for the Islamists and their largest representation since the Muslim Brotherhood in 1989 gained 22 out of the 80 seats that existed then.
The IAF had 10 seats in the previous parliament elected in 2020 and 16 seats in the 2016 legislature.
The Islamists had sought to capitalize on growing anger over the ongoing war in Gaza among Jordanians, half of whom are of Palestinian origin.
“We are happy with these results and with the confidence placed in us by the Jordanian people,” IAF Secretary-General Wael al-Saqqa told AFP.
“Gaza, Palestine and Jerusalem are all part of the official and popular compass in Jordan and we will work on mobilizing” to “gain their rights and defend them,” he added.
He vowed that Jordanians would give Palestinians “financial and other assistance, and be their lungs in the path of liberation and achieving their right to a free state.”
The Muslim Brotherhood has been allowed to operate in Jordan since 1946. But it fell under suspicion after the Arab Spring, which saw Islamists pitted against established powers in many Arab countries.
“The elections reflect the desire for change and those who voted were not necessarily all Islamists but wanting change and had become fed up with the old ways,” Murad Adailah, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, said.
The Islamists, the only effective grassroots opposition, praised the authorities for not meddling in polls.
Adailah told Reuters their win was a “popular referendum” that backs their platform of support for the Palestinian terror group Hamas, their ideological allies, and their demand to scrap the country’s peace treaty with Israel.
Independent Election Commission chairman Musa Maaytah told a news conference where he announced the official results that the IAF’s rise was a sign of Jordan’s “determination to have political pluralism.”
‘Astonishing’ result
The other seats in parliament went to representatives of major Jordanian tribes, leftist parties, pro-government factions, centrists, former lawmakers, and retired military officers.
Twenty-seven women won seats in the legislature, following 2022 reforms that allocated more seats for them and reduced the minimum age for candidates.
That reform also expanded the number of seats from 130 to 138 and sought to strengthen the role of political parties in the legislature.
Under Jordan’s constitution, most powers still rest with the king who appoints governments and can dissolve parliament. The assembly can force a cabinet to resign by a vote of no confidence.
The monarch hopes nascent political parties under the new law will help pave the way for governments that emerge from parliamentary majorities.
The voting system still favors sparsely populated tribal and provincial regions over the densely populated cities mostly inhabited by Jordanians of Palestinian descent, which are Islamist strongholds and highly politicized.
Turnout registered 32 percent in the polls that were largely overshadowed by the Gaza war and Jordan’s economic troubles.
The war in Gaza has affected tourism to Jordan, which relies on the sector for about 14% of its gross domestic product.
Compounding the country’s economic woes, public debt has neared $50 billion and unemployment hit 21% in the first quarter of this year.
Jordan in 1994 signed a peace treaty with Israel, becoming only the second Arab state to do so after Egypt, but regular protests have called for the treaty’s dissolution since the war erupted on October 7 when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas in Gaza and free 251 hostages who were abducted by terrorists in the Hamas attack.
Oraib Rantawi, head of the Amman-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies, described the Islamists’ gains in the election as “astonishing in their magnitude.”
The Islamists won “nearly half a million votes,” a figure he said was unprecedented in their history in Jordan.
“Gaza played a major role in this,” he added, as well as a feeling among voters that other competing parties “were created in haste… to reduce the chances of success of the Islamic Action Front.”
